


words we use for you and me

by carolinecrane



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-21
Updated: 2010-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 07:50:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/134895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinecrane/pseuds/carolinecrane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Kurt transfers to Dalton, his life is perfect. He has friends and a spot in the show choir, and a hot boyfriend who's totally into him, so it's easy to ignore the nagging feeling that something's missing. Then Puck turns up and Kurt's life gets a lot more complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	words we use for you and me

**Author's Note:**

> Cover art by [dearthursday](http://dearthursday.livejournal.com/).

  


Three months after enrolling at Dalton, Kurt’s starting to develop patterns. Habits, little things that help him feel as though this is really his life now. It’s still hard to believe some days, hard to imagine he can wake up in the morning and go to classes and lunch and Glee and not once worry about getting slammed into a locker or slushied or dumped in a dumpster.

Of course he misses his friends. He misses Mercedes and Tina, misses Brittany, even, because she’s the second best dancer he knows, after Mike, and Mike’s not really into the sort of routine Kurt usually needs choreographed. He might even miss Finn a little bit, in a brotherly sort of way, though he wouldn’t admit it, even on pain of death.

He doesn’t miss anything else about McKinley, though, because he still gets to sing and the Warblers value him a lot more than Mr. Schue ever did. Not that Kurt can really fault Schue for his pathetic crush on Finn – not without being a filthy hypocrite, anyway – but that doesn’t make his blatant favoritism any less appalling.

He even has a boyfriend now, one who’s popular and cute and older than Kurt, and dating Blaine has certainly made it a lot easier to be the new kid at Dalton. And he really likes Blaine, but lately…lately when they’re together Kurt finds himself wondering if his affection for Blaine has more to do with gratitude than an actual attraction.

Whenever he finds himself thinking it he tells himself it’s just because he’s never had a boyfriend before. It’s an adjustment, that’s all. Plus, Blaine’s older and more popular, and it turns out Kurt’s not that good at living in someone’s shadow.

“Hey.”

Kurt blinks and looks up to find Blaine watching him, smiling that dazzling smile of his, the one that says, “You’re sort of ridiculous but I like you anyway”. Kurt’s…not that fond of that smile, if he’s being honest with himself. It has a tendency to make him feel a little stupid.

“Sorry, what?”

“Are you ready to go? Classes are about to start.”

Kurt starts to pick up his tray, then remembers where he is and leaves it for the – no doubt well-paid – staff to clear away. He shoulders his bag and fixes his own lapels, then he falls into step next to Blaine. A hand closes around his and Kurt wishes for what feels like the hundredth time that he could feel that rush of butterflies, the way he felt the first time Blaine took his hand. Before they even knew each other, back when Blaine was just a cute, unattainable boy from another school who lived a life Kurt could only dream of.

He holds Blaine’s hand as they cross the dining hall, wondering whether or not his palm feels sweaty as they pass through the heavy wooden double doors into the foyer. They stop at the bottom of the grand spiral staircase Kurt’s always loved, just like they do every morning. Blaine smiles at him again and leans close, and Kurt turns his mouth up for a chaste kiss. When Blaine pulls away again he’s still smiling, and Kurt smiles back and hopes it looks more genuine than it feels.

“See you at lunch.”

Kurt nods and watches him take the stairs two at a time, then he turns away from the stairs and toward the door that leads to his first class of the day. He’s halfway across the foyer when the front door opens, letting in a blast of cold Ohio winter air and a face so familiar Kurt wonders for a moment if he’s hallucinating.

And he must be hallucinating, because Noah Puckerman is not standing in the middle of the Dalton Prep grand foyer wearing a navy blazer with smart red trim and looking for all the world like a fish out of water. _More like a shark,_ Kurt thinks, then he wonders if he can make it across the foyer without Puck recognizing him.

“Hummel?”

 _Guess not._ Kurt takes a deep breath and turns on his heel to face Puck.

Puck who’s looking a little…lost, one hand on the back of his neck and the other fidgeting with his blazer and it’s not like he’s never seen Puck in a tie before, because they were both in Glee, and Kurt designed most of those costumes himself. But there’s something about Puck in that blazer, wearing the same uniform as the rest of them yet still making it look a little dirty, like maybe he debauched a cheerleader or two on his way to school.

But there aren’t any cheerleaders at Dalton, and the Puck Kurt knows would never stand for that, so there can only be one reason he’s wearing that uniform. Kurt rolls his eyes and wonders why he didn’t realize immediately, then he crosses the foyer and leans in close to Puck, dropping his voice so no Warblers in the vicinity will hear.

“If you’re here to spy I am not helping you. I’m a Warbler now, that’s where my current loyalties lie.”

“Dude, you think I’d put on this monkey suit to spy on the competition?” Puck says, smoothing his hand down the front of his blazer, and Kurt really wishes he’d stop doing that. He’s close enough to feel the cold air radiating off Puck, and he knows if he reached out and touched he’d feel the Ohio winter clinging to his clothes.

But not his skin, Kurt guesses. Never his skin, because Puck’s so objectively hot that Kurt can’t imagine him ever feeling cold. He shivers at the thought and tightens his grip on his bag and doesn’t back away to a safe distance. “Then why are you here?”

“That’s a long story,” Puck answers, glancing around the foyer as a few curious students pass them, craning their necks for a look at the new guy. “But the gist is that I go here now. Guess that makes you my only friend in the place.”

Kurt opens his mouth to point out that they are not now, nor have they ever been friends, but something stops him. Maybe it’s the fact that the only other time he’s seen Puck looking vulnerable was the day his daughter was born.

“You go here. As in, you’re enrolled at Dalton. _Why?_ ”

“Because I beat the shit out of Karofsky and got expelled from McKinley,” Puck says, looking Kurt right in the eye and Kurt can’t explain why it makes his heart skip a beat. “It was this or a one way trip back to Juvie.”

Kurt has no idea what to say to that. He has a million questions, starting with why Puck beat up Karofsky, and he doesn’t want to assume he knows or anything, but the way Puck’s looking at him makes those pesky dormant butterflies stir for the first time in months. But Puck _can’t_ know what happened with Karofsky; Kurt never told anyone except his dad, and that was only because in the end the truth was the only way to convince Burt to let him transfer to Dalton.

“So are you going to show me where the office is or what?” Puck asks, and this time he smirks at Kurt, which makes him look more like himself, but somehow kind of hotter at the same time.

“Of course,” Kurt says, and he knows he’s blushing, so he turns on his heel and nods toward the administrative offices and hopes Puck won’t notice. “Follow me.”

“Right behind you,” Puck says.

Kurt swallows hard and leads the way.

~

It’s his own fault for not just pointing at the office from a safe distance and walking away, Kurt realizes. In his defense, finding himself leading Puck around Dalton is a surreal enough experience to make him lose all grasp of logic and reason, at least long enough to wander into the office with him and find himself appointed as Puck’s own personal tour guide.

Which seems particularly unreasonable considering it hasn’t been that long since Kurt finally ditched his own student mentor, a well-meaning but overzealous junior who still checks in with Kurt from time to time to make sure he’s keeping up with his classes and he hasn’t wandered into the woods and gotten lost on his way to a soccer meet or something. When he points all this out to the guidance counselor -- a man he considered far more competent than Ms. Pillsbury up to now -- he just smiles and says that helping Puck learn the ropes will ensure that Kurt knows them.

They’re in the same grade, so of course they’re in almost all the same classes, though Kurt does get a small reprieve just before lunch when they reach the foreign language wing and he deposits Puck in front of Spanish II and ducks into his own Advanced French Composition class. He spends an hour listening to Madame Moreau discuss existential clauses and trying not to picture Puck just down the hall, blazer hanging open and slumped in his chair, probably staring out the window and formulating some kind of escape plan.

And that’s something Kurt will be more than happy to help him with, if it means getting back to the nice, quiet routine he was just starting to get comfortable with when Puck crashed back into his life.

Kurt doesn’t fetch him from his classroom for lunch, because Puck’s a big boy and he can probably find his way to the dining hall, or bully -- _recruit_ , if he doesn’t want to get kicked out on his first day -- some other unwilling minion to lead the way. Instead Kurt keeps his head down and hurries through the crowded hallway, ducking into the foyer and letting the crush of student bodies and the scent of some kind of roasted meat carry him through the double doors to lunch.

Normally he waits at the bottom of the staircase for Blaine, a habit that started when he was brand new and nervous about eating lunch by himself. Blaine’s taken care of him since he started here, Kurt realizes, and he’s grateful. The trouble is that he’s not sure he needs to be taken care of anymore, at least not like that, and he’s not sure how to tell Blaine without hurting his feelings.

He picks up a tray and takes his place in line, not scanning the crowd for broad shoulders under the same blue blazer the rest of them are wearing and a stupid mohawk that looks more out of place here than Kurt ever imagined it could. If he’d ever imagined it, which he hasn’t, thank you very much.

He’s blushing at the thought when somebody taps him on the shoulder, and Kurt glances up, expecting to find Blaine frowning about the fact that Kurt didn’t wait for him. Instead he finds himself face to face with Puck, and when his stomach does a weird little flip he clamps down hard on the sensation and tells himself he’s just reacting this way because he transferred here to get _away_ from his own personal bully contingent.

“Hey,” Puck says, easing into line with him and Kurt’s not sure what the official stance on cutting is at this school, but when he doesn’t hear any grumbling from the guys behind him, he lets it go. “Man, this school doesn’t mess around. I just came from Spanish, right? And the entire class was _in_ Spanish.”

Kurt bites his tongue against the urge to critique Mr. Schuester’s teaching methods. He doesn’t criticize the entire public school system, either. Instead he reaches for a freshly dressed tossed salad and a bottle of water, then he looks over at Puck.

“There are six public high schools in Lima. Why are you here again?”

Puck shrugs and picks up his own tray, following Kurt across the dining room to his usual table. The table where he eats lunch with his boyfriend every day of the week, and Kurt flushes and scans the crowd for any sign of Blaine as Puck slides into the chair across from him.

“I told you, it was this or back to Juvie. Mr. Schue put in a word with my social worker. Seemed like he felt pretty bad about me taking the fall for this whole mess.”

Kurt opens his mouth to ask what that’s supposed to mean, exactly, because he can’t imagine a single reason Mr. Schuester would have to feel guilty about Puck violating the terms of his parole by inflicting bodily harm on Karofsky, of all people. He gets as far as a frown and a, “What...” before the chair next to him scrapes across the floor, and Kurt looks up to find Blaine sitting down.

“Hi,” Blaine says, and he doesn’t lean in for a kiss, but his fingers skim across the back of Kurt’s knuckles, just for a second, and when he glances over at Puck, he’s surprised to find Puck watching the movement of Blaine’s hand. And if he’s going to have some kind of homophobic freak-out he’ll get shipped right back out of here and straight to teenager prison, so if that’s what he’s planning, Kurt would just as soon he get it over with.

“Who’s your friend?” Blaine asks, smiling that dazzling smile of his at Puck.

“Noah,” Puck says before Kurt can answer ‘Puck’ or ‘we’re not friends, for the love of Gaga’ or any of the other million things running through his head, then he _holds out his hand_ and Blaine grins some more and shakes it as though Puck’s an actual human being or something.

“Kurt and me went to school together in Lima,” Puck’s saying, and Kurt would wince at his grammar, except he’s too busy wondering when Puck started going by ‘Noah’. “He’s been cool about showing me around and stuff today.”

Blaine turns his smile on Kurt for a second, affection and something else Kurt can’t quite put his finger on shining in those impossibly gorgeous eyes and for a second Kurt feels as though he’s the only one who’s not in on the joke. Then Puck starts talking again and Blaine turns back to him, and all Kurt can do is sit there and watch them and wonder just how long and how many mochachinos it’s going to take to recover from this nightmare when he finally wakes up.

It turns out the universe has a pretty sick sense of humor, though, because things get even weirder after lunch. He starts to pick up his tray, as usual, remembering himself just in time. Puck picks his up without even hesitating, looking around for a busing station and Kurt has to catch his sleeve between two fingers to get his attention.

“Just leave it on the table. They’ll come around.”

Puck frowns at him, then down at his tray, then shrugs and sets it down again. “Cool.”

Blaine smiles and catches Kurt’s hand, which, okay, it’s not that unusual, but it feels kind of weird to be holding Blaine’s hand in front of Puck. And it shouldn’t, because Blaine’s his boyfriend, for God’s sake, and the whole reason he transferred was so that he could hold a boy’s hand without fear of slushies or bruises or worse. Well, it’s part of the reason he transferred, anyway.

But instead of taking a hint and making himself scarce, Puck just falls into step on Kurt’s other side, and suddenly he finds himself being escorted across the dining room by the most unlikely pair he could possibly imagine. They stop at the bottom of the staircase, only this time Kurt and Puck are going up and Blaine’s headed outside and across the quad. He leans in and brushes a kiss across Kurt’s cheek, then he smiles and waves a friendly goodbye to Puck -- _nice to meet you, Noah_ \-- and disappears.

And the whole time Puck’s just standing there waiting for them to finish, like this isn’t the most bizarre extended nightmare Kurt’s ever had. They reach the top of the stairs and Kurt turns down a hall, Puck right on his heels and they’re going to the same class, so it’s not like Kurt can even make up an excuse and ditch him.

“Hudson told me you were hooking up regular with some dude now,” Puck says, and Kurt feels his whole face flush. “He didn’t tell me how _nice_ the dude was, though. It kind of hurts to look at him.”

Kurt has no idea how to respond to that without admitting that Puck has a point, and that’s never going to happen, so instead he presses his lips together hard and turns into their classroom.

“Finn hasn’t actually met him.”

“You mean you haven’t played ‘Meet the Parents’ yet?” Puck asks, and how he manages to make even that sound dirty, Kurt will never know.

“No.”

Puck doesn’t answer, but when Kurt glances over at him, he catches just a hint of a smile curving one corner of his mouth.

~

By the time classes are over Kurt’s all but resigned himself to the fact that he’s saddled with Puck, at least for the first few days. Once he knows the routine he’ll find other, cooler people to hang out with, guys who like girls and talking about girls and possibly talking about which students they’d like to beat up, if it weren’t going to get them kicked out of school.

He shows Puck where to find his room and lets him introduce himself to his roommate, a boy Kurt hasn’t met but who looks athletic, like he’s the type to play team sports and sweat a lot and maybe take out his aggressions on the players from the opposing team instead of his classmates. Kurt’s confident Puck and his new roommate will get along just fine, and he leaves him to settle in and hopes Puck will ditch him faster than previously expected.

He meets Blaine outside the dining hall before dinner, leans up to kiss him hello and lingers for a second or two longer than he might have if Puck hadn’t just crash landed in his life again. Not that Puck has anything to do with it. He’s just an annoying reminder of why Kurt transferred in the first place, and why he’s so grateful to Blaine for showing him that he had options.

So it’s a thank you kiss, and it doesn’t have anything to do with who may or may not be watching. Anyway, Blaine’s certainly not complaining; when Kurt pulls back Blaine smiles and reaches for his hand, and Kurt smiles back and threads their fingers together and doesn’t think about whether or not his palm is sweaty.

It’s nice, in a nostalgic way, and Kurt's congratulating himself on getting right back on track when he looks up from his roast beef to watch Puck sliding into the chair across from him. If it bothers Blaine that Kurt seems to have developed a shadow he doesn’t mention it. Instead he smiles at Puck and says, “Hey, Noah, how’s your first day going?”

 _Noah_ , Kurt thinks, turning the name over in his mind as he tries to imagine saying it out loud. But it doesn’t fit no matter how hard he tries to make it, not when he looks across the table at that mohawk and the smirk and those hands that Kurt can feel on him if he lets himself try, and he _knows_ that it really is his name, but Kurt can’t think of him as anyone other than Puck.

“It’s going okay,” Puck’s saying, and he’s talking to Blaine, but he keeps looking at Kurt. “Hummel’s a pretty good tour guide.”

“Student mentor,” Blaine says, laughing at Puck’s frown. “That’s what we call it here. On your first day you get assigned a student mentor to show you around, make sure you find all your classes, that kind of thing.”

“Kinda like a tour guide.”

Puck doesn’t even crack a smile, just stands up and pushes his mostly untouched dinner away, and he can’t prove it or anything, but Kurt’s pretty sure Puck’s making fun of his boyfriend.

“Where are you going?” Kurt asks before he remembers he doesn’t actually care. This time Puck does smile, but it's more of a smirk than anything Kurt would classify as friendly.

“Don’t worry, Hummel, I’ll catch up with you later. See you around,” he says to Blaine, then he turns and walks out of the dining hall, and Kurt finds himself irrationally annoyed at the fact that Puck didn’t forget and start to pick up his tray.

“He’s...interesting,” Blaine says, and Kurt blushes when he realizes he’s still staring in the direction Puck disappeared.

"That’s not the word I’d choose,” Kurt says, forcing his gaze back to Blaine. “In fact, there’s nothing interesting about Noah Puckerman at all. He’s just another Lima loser.”

And okay, it might sound a little more bitter than he means it to, but Kurt’s seen more of Puck today than he has in their entire acquaintanceship up to now, and he still hasn’t figured out what Puck’s doing here. If he believed in God he’d think this was some sort of punishment for mocking Rachel’s sweater sets for so long, but really, he feels he’s already paid sufficiently for any bad karma he may have incurred in the name of fashion.

“He seems to like you well enough.”

Kurt blinks at Blaine while he tries to get the words he just said to make sense. There must be a reason Blaine would get the impression that Puck feels anything about him at all, let alone _likes_ him. They barely speak the same language, and sharing a common zip code doesn’t make them BFF.

“He used to throw me in the dumpster.”

He doesn’t mean to say it out loud. He’s not even aware he’s thinking about it until he hears the words come out of his mouth, but when Blaine’s expression shifts from vaguely amused to concerned, he wishes he could take it back.

“You don’t have to be his student mentor, Kurt. Just go to the office and tell them you’re too busy. Tell them it’s because of the Warblers; they won’t even question it.”

It’s a good idea. He knows he should probably take the out, and when Puck asks why, Kurt can just tell him he’s too new and he’s still trying to catch up with the academics, and he doesn’t have time to play tour guide or anything else with Puck. He feels his cheeks flush at the thought and reaches for his water, draining half the glass before he looks at Blaine again.

“I’m not afraid of Puck.”

“That’s not the point," Blaine says, his hand on Kurt’s shoulder, and it’s probably supposed to be comforting, but mostly Kurt just wishes Blaine would stop looking at him. “They don’t tolerate any kind of bullying here, Kurt. That includes intimidation. With your history...”

“It’s fine,” Kurt interrupts, cheeks burning now and he does not want to have this conversation. Because the thing is, he doesn’t really want to be Puck’s student mentor, but it’s not because he finds Puck intimidating. It would be easier if Puck _was_ being a jerk to him; at least that Kurt's used to. It’s the fact that Puck’s being sort of...well, _human_ that’s freaking him out.

~

It doesn’t take Puck that long to adjust to boarding school. The zero tolerance policy on bullying means he has to use something other than his fists to entertain himself for once, and the lack of girls means no readily available sex to fill the time either. But he’s right about the school taking academics seriously, so they all have to spend quite a bit of time studying, and Puck’s no exception.

He’s still following Kurt to classes even though he knows perfectly well where they are by now. He sits next to Kurt in every class they share, distracting Kurt by shifting around in his chair and toying with the buttons on his blazer like he still can’t get used to wearing it and _breathing_ in Kurt’s proximity without threatening to humiliate him in some very public way. He sits with Kurt and Blaine at every single meal, and he never talks much, but he’s so _loud_ about it that he makes it impossible to ignore him.

On Mondays and Wednesdays he shows up at dinner long enough to bolt a few bites of food and swallow a glass of milk in one long gulp, then he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and grins at the way Kurt wrinkles his nose before he disappears again. Kurt’s asked him at least a dozen times where he’s going in such a hurry, because he’s not on any teams and Kurt’s fairly sure he can’t have a girl stashed somewhere. That thought always makes Kurt’s butterflies act up a little, but he ignores it and glares while Puck grins and tells Kurt not to miss him too much, then disappears again.

He invites himself to study with Kurt most nights, but he doesn’t seem to study so much as lounge in a chair at one of the heavy wooden tables in the dorm study lounge, staring into space and looking sort of wrinkled and ridiculously, casually hot in his blazer. He looks like a Tommy Hilfiger ad, Kurt decides one night while he’s cramming for his English test and definitely not staring at Puck. Or maybe one of those black and white Calvin Klein ads, except the ones where the models are wearing more than underwear.

Which, of course, means now he’s picturing Puck in his underwear, if he even _owns_ any, and okay, that’s a mental image he definitely doesn’t need.

“You okay, Hummel?”

Kurt looks up to find Puck watching him, expression completely neutral and Kurt can’t decide if Puck’s suddenly psychic, or if being too hot for his own good is still his only superpower.

“I’m perfectly fine, why do you ask?”

“You look kinda flushed. Sure you’re not getting sick or something?”

And then Puck sets the chair he’s been tipping back all evening on the floor and leans across the table, reaching out to put his hand on Kurt’s forehead. Just like that, like _touching each other_ is a thing they do.

Kurt frowns and pushes Puck’s hand away and reaches up to comb his fingers through his bangs where they’re probably mussed from Puck’s overlarge, clumsy fingers. Except they didn’t feel clumsy against Kurt’s skin, and he flushes a little harder and doesn’t brush his own fingers against the spot where Puck touched him.

“Okay, sorry,” Puck says, frowning and leaning back in his chair and Kurt refuses to believe he’s actually _pouting_. As though it’s possible for anyone to hurt Puck’s feelings, least of all Kurt.

“Since when do you go by Noah, anyway?”

For a second Puck just stares at him, and okay, it’s sort of a strange time to ask, considering Puck’s been following him around like an overgrown puppy for two weeks now. But every time he hears someone say ‘Noah’ it still takes him a second to figure out who they’re talking to, and he’s not sure he’s ever going to get used to hearing Puck’s voice answering.

“Since I landed in the middle of Preppyville," Puck answers, his expression telling Kurt that it’s a dumb question. “I mean, come on. You’re doing a dude who goes by _Blaine_.”

Which...fine, point taken, but he doesn’t have to be so vulgar about it. Kurt blushes even harder, tensing in anticipation of that hand pressed against his skin again, but Puck doesn’t reach for him. He’s just leaning back with his tie loose at his neck and his blazer hanging open and _looking_ , and not for the first time Kurt feels a little like something at the bottom of a Petri dish.

“We’re not...I mean I’m not...nobody’s _doing_ anybody.”

“Really?” Puck says, and he sounds so surprised that Kurt’s not sure whether to be horrified or flattered.

“I don’t see how it’s any of your business anyway.” Kurt crosses his arms hard over his chest and just looks at Puck, their English test forgotten and he _really_ hopes no one’s listening to their conversation.

“Yeah, but...why not?”

“Excuse me?” Kurt says, voice going high at the end of the sentence, but Puck doesn’t seem to notice. He’s still frowning at Kurt like he’s genuinely confused, anyway, and Kurt has to admit it makes a kind of perverse sense that Puck can’t comprehend a relationship that’s _not_ based on sex.

“I mean, you finally get out of McKinley where everyone’s a total dick to you because you happen to like dick, and now you’re here, and you’re dating some guy who seems like he’s into you, so why wouldn’t you go for it? Isn’t that why you left?”

“I didn’t transfer to Dalton to improve my sex life.”

“Obviously.” Puck’s still just looking at him, and if he was smiling or something Kurt would think he was being laughed at, but mostly Puck just looks like he really doesn’t get it. “I mean, do you _want_ to? You’re not having second thoughts about the whole gay thing, are you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I am not discussing my relationship with you.”

“Well you should maybe discuss it with somebody, because it seems like there’s something not right,” Puck says, like he actually _cares_ or something. “I’m just saying, most guys our age think about sex pretty much all the time.”

“You’d certainly know,” Kurt says, and this time Puck does smirk. It’s slow and sort of feral, like watching some kind of dangerous predator sizing up his next meal, and Kurt’s eyes go wide for a second before he shifts his focus firmly back to his English notes.

It’s not like he doesn't know that Puck has a point. He’s been questioning his motives for staying with Blaine for awhile now, long before Puck showed up and turned his life into a surreal tragicomedy. But he still doesn’t know what to do about it, because he likes Blaine, and anyway he’s never been in a relationship before, so he doesn’t even know _how_ to break up with someone.

And the only person he can talk to about it, probably the only person in the entire school who wouldn’t think he’s a fool for throwing away the perfect boyfriend, is Noah Puckerman. _Puck_ , who made his life hell for over a year, then stopped being such a jerk all the time, granted, but never actually made it up to Kurt or anything. And even if he did want to have this conversation with Puck, he’s not exactly the traditional relationship type, so what would he even know about letting someone down gently?

Kurt swallows a frustrated sigh and stares down at his notes without actually seeing any of the words. He can _feel_ Puck over there, looking perfect and smug and watching him like he’s waiting for the moment Kurt breaks. Only he’s not sure if Puck’s waiting for him to lose his temper or just fall apart, and he’s not really sure he wants to know.

~

Warblers practice is the only real respite Kurt gets from Puck and his offensively smug _existence_ , so he looks forward to it. Even given his conflicted feelings about Blaine, Kurt enjoys the time they spend together practicing. He likes feeling as though his talents are valued, certainly, and he likes knowing that being in Glee actually ups his popularity at this school instead of marking him as some kind of social pariah.

Not that he ever had any real hope of being less than an outcast at McKinley; even his brief stint as kicker and then as a Cheerio only did so much for his social status. Gay trumped pretty much everything else, as it turned out. He remembers the harsh, unwelcome press of too-dry lips and wrinkles his nose, closes his eyes and hums a few bars of “Single Ladies” until the moment passes.

That song just makes him think of football again, and he sighs and mourns the joy that was once Beyonce as he walks into practice. Blaine’s center stage, as usual, talking to a few of the seniors about something they all seem to think is hilarious. And Kurt knows he should be thrilled to be dating a senior -- a popular, handsome senior -- but when Blaine turns and smiles at him he doesn’t feel much of anything.

“Kurt,” Blaine says, waving him into the center of the conversation. When Kurt reaches the group Blaine slides an arm around his shoulders and draws him close until Kurt can feel warmth pressing along one side of his body. It’s...nice, comforting in a weird way, to fit against somebody like that. And just like every other time Blaine puts an arm around him, Kurt wonders what it would feel like if Blaine was somebody else.

Only every time he tries to imagine who he’d rather be touching, his imagination betrays him with images of letter jackets and football jerseys and the mingled scents of sweat and teenage boys. So he tries not to imagine it, because if he gives in to what’s clearly an attraction he’s been conditioned to feel just by virtue of surviving the Lima public school system for so many years, then he’s just going to end up mired in self-loathing like the very Neanderthals who drove him out of McKinley in the first place.

It’s just because his first kiss was taken from him on someone else’s terms. It’s a classic case of the victim blaming themselves; that’s probably what Miss Pillsbury would say, anyway, and it turns out she’s no less ridiculous than any other guidance counselor. Besides, when he does imagine kissing someone besides Blaine, it’s never Dave Karofsky with his thin lips and his menacing stares and his apparent predilection for foods containing heavy amounts of garlic.

It’s never anyone particularly recognizable; Finn’s his brother now, so...no, and while Sam’s nice enough and he does have an excellent voice, Kurt never could get past the hair. Mike Chang’s always been nice and Kurt is not going to argue with Tina about his abs, but despite the fact that he plays football and he owns a letter jacket, he’s never featured in Kurt’s fantasies either.

He’s never been able to put a face on what -- who -- he wants, but he knows his theoretical dream guy has strong hands that touch him a little more surely than Blaine, that he kisses with more passion and spends less time asking if this is okay, if Kurt wants to slow down until they’re just...standing still, because he doesn’t know how to _say_ what he wants and to Blaine that usually means he wants to stop altogether.

And Kurt lets him, because he likes Blaine, but he knows by now that things between them are never going to feel quite right. They have fun together, but in a lot of ways it’s kind of like dating himself. Maybe if he said all this to Blaine he’d even understand, maybe he’d smile and take Kurt’s hand and say that he feels exactly the same way and it’s okay, that they can still be really good friends.

Eventually they’d probably even start doing friend stuff, having friend conversations like what kind of guys they _are_ attracted to. Which brings Kurt right back to letter jackets and boy sweat and the vague, ever-present scent of cherry slushie, and he blushes bright red and wills away an erection and tells himself to get a grip, for the love of Gaga, because he could never, ever tell Blaine that what he wants more than anything is what he ran away from in the first place.

“Earth to Kurt,” Blaine says, pressing in a little closer and laughing close-up when Kurt blinks at him.

“Sorry, what?”

“You keep doing that lately,” Blaine says, and he’s still smiling, but that puzzled look is back. “Drifting off into orbit somewhere. Everything okay?”

“Fine, just a little tired,” Kurt lies. “What were we talking about?”

“Tryouts,” Blaine answers. “We usually have them in the spring so we have a little time to get comfortable with the new guys before the seniors graduate. Your friend Noah sang in Glee with you, right? You should invite him to try out.”

The thought of Puck invading the one part of his week that Kurt has to himself makes his cheeks burn, and he looks away and hopes Blaine won’t notice. “I’m sure he’ll be busy going out for field hockey or something. Anything where he’s allowed to hit people with sticks, basically.”

Blaine laughs and lets go of him. “Well, mention it anyway. Unless there’s some reason you don’t want him around.”

He’s giving Kurt that look, the one that says _you don’t have to put up with that kind of thing here_. Mostly he’s let the whole Puck thing go, hasn’t pushed Kurt for any more details about Puck’s casual bullying back at McKinley or why Kurt lets Puck hang around him when he doesn’t really like Puck all that much. But every once in awhile Blaine looks at him in a way that manages to make Kurt feel at once annoyed and sort of stupid, like he _is_ still letting Puck push him around even though Puck never actually _does_ anything to him.

“Wait, how come I didn’t have to wait until spring to try out?” Kurt asks, and okay, maybe he’s changing the subject, but it’s not as though he’s going to talk about Puck in front of the Warblers.

“I pulled a few strings,” Blaine says, grin back in place and when he winks Kurt’s stomach drops, because he’s pretty sure Blaine just told him that Kurt only got his spot in Glee because of his boyfriend. Not that he doesn’t deserve it; he’s well aware of his strengths, and his voice is an asset to the group. But if Blaine’s the only reason he’s here right now instead of waiting on tender hooks for tryouts like all the other hopefuls, that just makes Kurt even more indebted to him.

~

The one drawback to not being a senior at Dalton is that he’s not allowed to have his car on campus. Which means that Finn's probably driving his baby, a possibility which makes Kurt’s blood boil every time he considers it. And since he was the only one among his group of friends with his own ride, it also means none of his friends can come pick him up for the weekend.

Dalton’s close enough to go home on a more or less regular basis, at least, which means he gets to see Mercedes and Tina and sometimes even Brittany. They catch him up on McKinley gossip over mochachinos and give him a dose of much-needed girl time, because sure, he enjoys the violence-free eye candy, but sometimes the testosterone level at an all-boys’ school gets to be a little much.

In the beginning he made up every excuse he could not to go home, a fact Mercedes called him on more than once. But he’d still been basking in the novelty of having a boyfriend at the time, and spending his free time hanging around with Blaine was his priority, even if all they did was hold hands and talk about how hard it was to be the only homo in public school.

Once the shine wore off Kurt gave in to guilt -- from Carole, mostly, though he knew it was on his father’s behalf -- and agreed to go home for a weekend here and there. It means someone has to come pick him up, but his father doesn’t seem to mind. The drive gives them a chance to catch up, and it’s not that Kurt begrudges him his relationship with Carole, but sometimes it’s nice to be just the two of them again.

He's looking forward to this weekend especially, mainly because it means a break from Puck. He’s been at Dalton nearly a month now, and Kurt thought that would have been plenty of time to get himself expelled, but he’s still here. He even seems to be getting along with people, and despite Kurt’s careful watch for signs of sudden, violent outbursts, he hasn't even seen a glimmer.

It’s disconcerting, to say the least, and he’s hopeful that a few days away from Dalton will give him a chance to get some perspective. At the very least it will give him a chance to get away from Puck’s _looks_ , heavy and searching, like he’s trying to work out some puzzle and Kurt’s his only clue.

And when he’s not staring at Kurt or following him around like his own personal bodyguard -- as though he even needs one of those at this school, and if this is his way of making up for the dumpster, Puck’s got lousy timing, because that actually would have come in handy back in Lima -- he’s asking embarrassing questions about Kurt’s love life.

Maybe it would have been understandable for the first day or two; Kurt might have excused a week, even, but it’s been nearly a month, and he still brings it up. Not all the time, but enough to be annoying, and it makes Kurt feel just a little off-center whenever Puck’s around, which is all the time.

Just yesterday Puck turned to him right in the middle of Geometry, leaning across the aisle and dropping his voice so their teacher wouldn’t hear him ask, “So if he’s not your type, who is?”

It’s not the first time Puck’s suggested that Kurt’s relationship issues stem from the fact that Kurt would rather be with someone different. It’s not even the first time Puck’s stated it as though it's a given, but it’s the first time Puck’s asked him what his type is, exactly. And the thing is, Kurt doesn’t really have an answer for that one. The first thought that springs to mind is ‘painfully closeted jocks, apparently’, which isn’t even true, because the jocks he’s fallen for are all painfully straight. He only knows the one closet case, and Kurt certainly doesn’t return Karofsky’s feelings.

He’s not even sure why Puck’s so interested in his relationship with Blaine, because every time he asks Puck just shrugs and claims there’s nothing better to do around here. And it’s ridiculous, because they’re not even friends. They’re just...people who know each other. Former teammates, at best. Lately Puck’s been a downright thorn in Kurt’s side, and that’s hardly an improvement.

Kurt sighs and takes a sip of the coffee he smuggled out of the dining room, glancing down the long driveway that leads to the school in the hope of catching a glimpse of his father’s truck. Normally he gets here early, and Kurt assumes it’s just because his dad’s as anxious to catch up as he is. But this morning he’s already ten minutes late, and Kurt’s wondering if he should call and make sure he hasn’t been forgotten when he hears someone walk up behind him.

“Hey,” Puck says, then he drops a well-used duffel bag at his feet and shoves his hands in his pockets. The pockets of his _letter jacket_ , and Kurt’s seen Puck in that damn thing at least a thousand times, but it’s been months, and something about seeing it again makes his stomach tremble.

“What are you doing?” Kurt asks, though he has a sinking feeling he already knows, and when he hears a car coming up the drive and looks up, he’s sure he’s right.

“Finn said he was coming to get you, asked if I wanted to bail for a couple days. I figured what the hell, you know?”

Kurt’s only half listening, because he knows exactly why Puck wants out of Dalton for the weekend, and he doesn’t need to hear the details of his tawdry plans to reacquaint himself with Santana’s libido. He can’t even make himself care about the fact that he has to share the ride home with Puck and Finn, because Finn’s _driving his car_ , and nobody even _asked_ him.

Right on cue Finn pulls up in front of them. Puck picks up his own bag and then reaches for Kurt’s, and Kurt’s too busy seething to stop him. He opens the back of the Navigator and tosses the bags inside while Finn climbs out of the truck to grin his stupid, dopey grin at them.

“What, they don't make you wear the uniform when you leave base?”

“It’s not the Army, dude,” Puck says, and Kurt rolls his eyes at both of them and holds out his hand.

“My keys, if you don’t mind,” he says, glaring at Finn and he must look like he means it, because Finn stops grinning at him. “Why are you driving my car?”

“Your dad said it would be good for the engine,” Finn says, but he doesn’t argue about who gets to drive, at least. “When I offered to come get you guys he mentioned how your truck’s just been sitting all this time, and I should drive it up here and give the engine a workout.”

Kurt can’t argue with the logic, though he would have preferred his father to drive the Navigator to him instead of sending Finn. He takes comfort in the fact that the engine needing a workout means Finn hasn’t been driving it all over Lima while Kurt’s been gone, doing God knows what with Rachel in the back seat.

He wrinkles his nose at the thought and climbs into the driver's seat, then he turns the engine while he waits for Finn and Puck to get in. He expects Finn to claim shotgun based on his -- at best marginal -- familial relationship to the driver, but when Kurt looks over he finds Puck leaning against the seat grinning at him.

“This is a sweet ride, Hummel.”

Kurt rolls his eyes and shifts into gear, spinning out a little harder than strictly necessary on the gravel drive. “It’s not like you haven’t seen it before."

“Yeah, but you’ve never given me a _ride_ before.”

He doesn’t mean that the way he makes it sound and Kurt knows it. Still, he can’t seem to stop himself from glancing over at Puck, taking in the easy way he’s spread across Kurt’s upholstery and the way he’s smirking as though that’s _exactly_ how he means it. Kurt curses his pale skin for the thousandth time since Puck turned up at Dalton and presses down a little harder on the gas pedal.

~

“So you and Puck are, like, friends now.”

“What? No,” Kurt says, looking away from an admittedly depressing selection of end-of-season sale jackets, and really, whoever decided to bring back Buffalo plaid as a fashion trend should be shot. He fixes Mercedes with the most significant look he can muster while his natural rosy glow is being washed out by the harsh glare of the Lima Mall’s fluorescent lighting. “We are _not_ friends. If anything, it’s possible he’s stalking me.”

“Why would Puck stalk you?”

“You’d have to ask Puck,” Kurt says, turning back to the clearance rack for one more disdainful look before he gives up altogether. “He’s the one who won’t stop following me all over school and asking inappropriate questions about my personal life.”

He doesn’t point out that he hasn’t actually asked Puck to stop following him around school, because he knows full well it wouldn’t do any good. Besides, it’s not that big a school.

“What kind of questions has he been asking?” Mercedes says, her expression telling him that she’s hoping Puck’s been asking all the questions about Blaine _she_ wants to ask. Kurt rolls his eyes and heads for the exit, and Mercedes hurries to follow him out of the department store and toward the parking garage.

Clearly she hasn’t mastered the fine art of subtlety in the months he’s been away, but she _is_ his best friend, and if he’s going to talk to anyone about the Blaine situation, he supposes it should be her.

“He seems to think my relationship lacks passion,” Kurt says, waving his hand vaguely because honestly, he doesn’t actually _care_ what Noah -- _Puck_ \-- thinks.

“But I thought you were totally into Blaine.”

“I was. I mean, I am,” Kurt amends, but he feels the tips of his ears heat up and he wishes suddenly that she didn’t know him so well. And sure enough, when they reach the Navigator and he slides into the front seat, she’s already frowning at him from the passenger side.

“Blaine’s wonderful, really," he says, then he sighs and looks out the windshield so he won’t have to look at Mercedes. “It’s just...sometimes I _do_ wonder if we’re together for the wrong reasons.”

“You like the guy, what’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing.” And he does like Blaine, he’s just not sure he likes him _enough_. “He was there when I needed him, and I’m just a little worried that maybe I’m staying with him out of gratitude instead of attraction.”

“So Puck’s right,” Mercedes says, and Kurt doesn’t actually _want_ to choke her, but for a second he can see the appeal.

He shrugs and starts the engine, easing out of the parking spot and toward the exit before he answers.

“It’s possible he has a point. A very small one,” he adds, and when Mercedes laughs he can’t quite keep himself from smiling.

She lets him change the subject on the way back to his house, and by the time they pull into the driveway he’s not thinking about Blaine or Puck anymore. All he’s thinking about is the chocolate peanut butter Haagen Dazs in his dad’s freezer and the number of Top Model episodes stockpiled on the DVR. So he's not prepared to walk into the living room and find Puck sprawled on the couch, idly flipping channels on his dad’s cable.

He looks up when they walk in, nodding what probably passes for a greeting in Neanderthal in Mercedes’ direction before he zeroes in on Kurt.

“Hey, Hummel. Your boyfriend called, said he couldn’t get you on your cell. I think he’s starting to get the feeling you’re avoiding him.”

When Kurt blushes and narrows his eyes Puck just smirks and unfolds himself from the couch, standing up and crossing the living room in a few strides. “Don’t worry. I told him you were probably at the day spa or something for a little girl time and you shut off your phone so it wouldn’t mess with your chi or whatever. I think he actually bought it.”

Kurt’s not sure whether Puck’s just messing with him until he says _I think he actually bought it_ , like he’s surprised anyone in the world is actually that dumb. And Blaine’s not dumb; he’s just...good, and nice, and he doesn’t automatically think the worst of people. He tried to rehabilitate _Karofsky_ , for God’s sake, and even now he won’t admit that it was a complete waste of time.

He reaches into his pockets one by one until he finds his phone, pressing buttons and frowning at two missed call notifications, a voicemail, and three new texts. And he doesn’t even remember turning off the ringer, but he must have, because it’s set on silent.

Two of the texts are from Blaine, both of them consisting of one word: _Okay?_ The third text is from a number he doesn’t recognize, but when he opens it he flushes crimson and looks at Puck.

“What are you doing here, anyway? And who told you it was okay to answer my father’s phone?”

Puck’s standing right in front of him, watching Kurt flip through the messages on his phone and still smirking, but as soon as Kurt starts talking his eyes narrow and suddenly he’s even closer than he was a second ago.

“I came over here to tell you your boyfriend called _my_ phone, Princess. Thought you might want a heads up so you could think up another lie to keep stringing him along. Hell, I should have done the dude a favor and just told him to cut you loose already. He could sure as hell do better than an ice queen like you.”

Kurt feels the words on his cheek, feels the heat and anger rolling off Puck and for a second he wonders if Puck’s going to punch him or something. For a second Kurt wishes he would, because at least that would make sense. And none of this makes sense, not Blaine calling _Puck_ about him or Puck’s presence in his life in the first place.

Mercedes is still standing behind him, looking between the two of them like she’s at some kind of bizarre sporting event. “Guys...” she says, but they both ignore her.

“You don’t know anything about me,” Kurt says, arms crossed tight over his chest and it takes everything in him not to take a step backwards.

“I know enough.” Puck spares him one last, scornful look, and Kurt imagines that he can feel it burning into his skin. Then he pushes past Kurt and heads for the door. When he reaches the entrance to the living room he pauses and doesn’t look back. “Tell Hudson I bailed.”

Then he’s gone, and Kurt’s glad. He is, because he doesn’t care about Puck or Puck’s opinion of him. He doesn’t even _like_ Puck, and he won’t miss the endless questions when they’re supposed to be studying or Puck’s constant presence or the way he looks at Kurt with those eyes of his, like Puck’s trying to memorize him. After today Puck’s probably never going to talk to him again, and that’s just fine with Kurt.

“Kurt, what...?”

Kurt shakes his head at Mercedes and flips his phone open, hovering over Blaine’s texts before he scrolls down to the third one. It’s just one line, but he knows exactly who it’s from, and it’s all the proof either of them need that Puck knows him better than Kurt would ever admit.

_gonna hav 2 decide wut u want soonr or latr, kurt_

His finger hovers over the delete button for a breath, then another before he finally lets out a frustrated noise and presses ‘save’ instead. When the New Contact screen pops up he frowns down at the name field for a second, then he types ‘Noah’ and presses ‘OK’ before he can change his mind.

~

Mercedes, bless her, doesn’t make him talk about it. Instead they huddle together in the center of his dad’s couch to eat ice cream and watch Tyra get increasingly more crazy with each episode of Top Model. But Kurt’s heart isn’t really in it anymore, and every time he pictures Puck’s face and the way he stood so _close_ , just for a second, Kurt blushes all over again.

“What do you know about Puck’s fight with Karofsky?” Kurt says, pausing the episode in the middle of Miss Jay’s runway lesson to face Mercedes.

For a second she just blinks at him like she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, then she frowns and sets her empty ice cream bowl on the coffee table.

“Nobody really knows much. I mean, we heard there was a fight, then Puck was just gone. Finn was suspended and I think Sam got detention or something, but nobody even saw Puck again until today.”

“Wait, Finn was there?”

“Yeah,” Mercedes says, shrugging like that’s common knowledge. And maybe it is, at McKinley, but apparently Kurt hasn’t kept up with the gossip as well as he thought. “He was suspended for like a week, and even when he came back he was a mess. Man, if Finn looked that bad just from keeping Puck from killing Karofsky, Puck must have looked like hamburger.”

Kurt frowns and tries to remember any new marks on Finn, but the truth is he hasn’t been looking that closely. They’re only home for one night, after all, and Kurt ditched Puck and Finn as soon as they got back to town so he could go pick up Mercedes. The plan was to maximize their Top Model viewing time with an all-nighter at Kurt’s house, but he knows he won’t be able to focus on Tyra anymore.

“But the fight was only a month ago. Wouldn’t he still...”

“Look like he tried to kill a guy with his bare hands?” she interrupts. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s Puck, you know?”

And sure, Kurt knows what she means. Puck’s...well, he’s _Puck_ , all fists and gleeful violence and way too much testosterone. But Karofsky’s _huge_ and he’s vicious and he hates himself more than Puck could ever dream of hating anyone, and Kurt knows firsthand what that kind of rage can make someone do.

“But _why_ did Puck try to kill Karofsky? I mean, what started it?”

“Nobody knows.” Mercedes shrugs and tugs the remote out of his hand, then she presses play and Miss Jay starts sashaying again in the background. “All I know is Puck got kicked out and Finn got suspended, and with them gone and you at Dalton, we didn’t have a prayer at Regionals. Rachel almost broke up with Finn over that.”

Kurt knows the Warblers won Regionals, of course, but he wasn’t there to see it, and nobody bothered to mention to him that his own brother -- okay, stepbrother -- wasn’t there either. He had no idea that New Directions was down their three strongest males; everybody knows Mike can’t sing, and there was no way they could win with just Sam and Artie to carry them.

“Why don’t you just ask Puck what happened? Seems like you two are pretty tight these days,” Mercedes says, and when she quirks an eyebrow at him Kurt frowns and tells himself she’s not implying what it sounds like she’s implying, because hello, they’re talking about _Puck_.

“Right, I’ll just text him and tell him to give me a call when he climbs off Santana.”

“Santana’s not here,” Mercedes says, her suspicious expression giving way to another frown. “Coach Sylvester’s running some kind of cheerleader boot camp. Starvation diets, ten hour workouts, you know how she is. They’re at some camp in the middle of nowhere freezing their asses off.”

Mercedes laughs at the thought, and okay, it is pretty funny, but Kurt’s still too busy wondering why Puck’s fight with Karofsky is such a big mystery to truly appreciate the image.

“Well, that explains Puck’s mood. He must be pretty disappointed to find the entire Cheerios squad out of pocket. Why else would he even bother to come home?”

“I don’t know, maybe he missed his mom’s cooking or something. But they’ve been complaining about this boot camp thing since before he got expelled, so unless he forgot or something, he knew Santana wouldn’t be around.”

Puck forgetting is the likeliest scenario, Kurt knows. He’s so completely focused on himself all the time that there’s no room in his tiny brain to keep track of anyone else’s comings and goings. Except that he seems to have Kurt’s schedule pretty much memorized, right down to the days Kurt ditches him for Warblers practice and the times Blaine expects to spend time with him without his shadow.

He’s actually really good at making himself scarce at exactly the right moment, Kurt realizes with a frown. Plus, there are the two nights a week he disappears halfway through dinner and doesn’t resurface again until Kurt’s already in the dorm study lounge, trying to focus on his homework and looking up every few minutes until he spots Puck walking through the door. He still hasn’t told Kurt where he goes every Monday and Wednesday evening, and Kurt’s starting to wonder just what other secrets Puck’s keeping.

He thinks about asking Finn. And he’s not above resorting to blackmail, except that he doesn’t really have any good dirt on Finn, and anyway Kurt has no idea where he is. The last time they saw Finn was ten minutes after Puck left, when he emerged from the basement freshly showered and frowning that puzzled frown of his and asked where Puck was. As soon as Kurt said he’d left Finn was digging out his phone, then he was gone too, and if he’d known he was going to need answers, Kurt wouldn’t have let him get away.

For a second he considers calling Finn and making up some kind of lie to get him to come home, but Puck’s probably with him, which means even if it works Puck will probably be with him when he shows up. Anyway, as soon as Puck finds out it’s Kurt on the phone he’ll know it’s a lie, and Kurt’s not sure when he started giving Puck that much credit, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

“Did you say Rachel almost broke up with Finn?”

“Yeah,” Mercedes says, glancing away from the TV long enough to blink at him. “I don’t know what he did to get her to forgive him. I mean, blowing Regionals...he might as well have taken her to the prom and dumped pig’s blood on her.”

Kurt’s pretty sure Rachel would actually take the pig’s blood a lot better, especially considering her vast experience with being slushied over the years. Which means Finn would have had to do something really drastic to get back in her good graces; maybe even something as drastic as telling her the truth.

“Mercedes,” he says, reaching for the remote and turning to face her, “would you hate me forever if I asked for a rain check on Top Model?”

~

Kurt’s been to Rachel’s house before, so the terrifying...frilliness of her bedroom isn’t as shocking as it could be. She seems a little surprised to see him, and he can’t exactly blame her. They were never what anyone would call friends, and now that Kurt’s in a winning choral group and Rachel’s still being held down by Schue and New Directions, she probably likes him even less.

But Rachel’s opinion of him matters even less now than it did when they went to the same school, so he doesn’t waste any time with social niceties.

“I need some answers,” he says as soon as she closes her bedroom door, “and I think you can provide them.”

Rachel sits on the edge of her bed and Kurt perches on the edge of the bench in front of her vanity. She's looking at him with that wide-eyed expression that used to make him want to slap her just for being so damn _earnest_ , but it’s possible this is his only chance to get the truth, so he swallows the familiar surge of emotion and forces a tight-lipped smile.

“If this is about Glee you can stop right there. I realize we didn’t perform up to our full potential at Regionals, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to help the enemy. Just because I dated Jesse...”

“It’s not about Glee,” Kurt interrupts, because honestly, if he lets her get going it could be an hour before he manages to get a word in edgewise. “It’s about...well, it’s about Puck, actually.”

Rachel’s eyes narrow a little, but her posture relaxes marginally, and Kurt decides to take that as a good sign. “I haven’t seen him since he...”

She pauses, looking away from him for a second, then she actually fidgets a little, and Kurt tries to remember if he's ever seen Rachel Berry speechless before. But it’s Rachel, so it doesn’t even last long enough for Kurt to form a complete thought, then she’s talking again.

“I suppose it’s unfair to blame him, actually. I mean, he _was_ involved, and he certainly didn’t help matters, but given the choice between losing Puck permanently and losing Finn, obviously I’d choose to give up Puck. I’m still not convinced they did the right thing, lying about what happened, but it was sort of noble of Puck to take the blame.”

She’s tilting her head to the side while she talks, as though she’s trying to remember exactly what happened. It’s not surprising, if what Kurt’s managed to glean from her confusing ramble so far is right. If he’s understanding, Rachel’s implying that what really happened is almost the exact opposite of the official story, which means...

“ _Finn_ tried to kill Karofsky?”

Rachel blinks at him then, eyes going wide and Kurt is not going to kill her. He’s not, at least not before she spits out the rest of the story.

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? I assumed Puck told you that much.”

“He didn’t say why,” Kurt hedges, hoping she won’t notice that he didn’t actually answer her question. But it’s Rachel, and she’s many things, but she’s not dumb.

“I’m not sure Finn would want me to talk to you about this.”

Kurt bites down hard on the urge to tell her exactly what he thinks of her and Finn and this whole, stupid mess. That’s the fastest way to get her to kick him out, or worse, launch into a lecture about loyalty and how that’s something Kurt wouldn’t understand, considering how easily he defected to Dalton and the Warblers. He’s heard all that before, in front of everyone in Glee on the day he announced he was leaving.

“I think I have a right to know,” he says, and if he’s wrong about Finn’s motivations he’s going to sound narcissistic _and_ disloyal, but he’s almost positive he’s not.

Rachel just looks at him for awhile, and when she blinks he thinks of owls.

“I suppose you’re right. Not that anyone blames you,” she adds, sitting up a little straighter on the edge of the bed. “You were the victim of sexual harassment, Finn told me all about it. He said Karofsky kissed you against your will and then he threatened you until you felt your only recourse was to leave McKinley.”

Rachel pauses, and Kurt’s so shocked that she knows about the kiss that he can’t even take advantage of her momentary silence.

“I’m sorry about calling you a traitor, Kurt. If we’d known what was happening...well, I can’t pretend we would have been able to stop it. Obviously the administration at McKinley turns a blind eye to all sorts of bullying. But my gay dads have been victims of discrimination all their lives, so I understand now that you didn't leave just to join a superior Glee club.”

“I...thank you,” Kurt says, and he’s surprised to find that he means it. “How did Finn know about Karofsky kissing me?”

“He heard your dad and his mom talking about it,” Rachel says. “It was after you left. He didn’t tell me until after the fight, and even then I don’t think he would have said anything if it wasn’t for what happened at Regionals.”

For a second her expression clouds, and it’s not as though Kurt blames her, because if he’d been with New Directions for the travesty that was Regionals he’d probably feel the same way. Then again, if he’d still been at McKinley, maybe it wouldn’t have happened at all.

“But why would that make him want to kill Karofsky? Finn’s the one who told me to stop getting my gay all over his teammates to begin with; I’m surprised he didn’t assume I’d thrown myself at Karofsky in the first place.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, and when she frowns he assumes she’s a little offended that he just accused her boyfriend of being a homophobe. Which he kind of is. At least Kurt used to think so, but suddenly he’s not so sure.

“Anyway, it wasn’t about the kiss. Not directly, at least. Not that Karofsky had a right to do that, and even if it wasn’t exactly sexual assault, it was sort of the same thing.”

He can’t pretend that’s not how it felt, just like he can’t pretend that he doesn’t feel vaguely nauseous every time he remembers the way Karofsky’s lips felt against him and the way his hands felt on Kurt’s skin. The whole reason he finally told his father the truth was because Karofsky wouldn’t let it go, and the worst part wasn’t the times he threatened to kill Kurt. The worst part was when he’d smile and wink or blow a kiss; those were the times Kurt wondered how far he’d take it the next time he found Kurt alone.

“It was what he said about you after you left that Finn felt he had to defend against,” Rachel’s saying, and Kurt shakes off the crawling sense of dread and tries to focus on the sound of her voice.

“What did he say, exactly?”

“I never actually heard him with my own ears, but Finn says that he was bragging in the locker room about how you were so scared of him that you ran away like a girl to, quote, ‘that fag school’. And he said you came on to him and you’re lucky he didn’t kill you right then. Finn called him a liar and I guess Karofsky didn’t like that much, because he waited until Finn was alone and cornered him and said he was just mad because he’s gay too, etcetera. You can imagine.”

She rolls her eyes as though it’s not worth repeating, and he’s sure it’s mostly not. But it still doesn’t make any sense, not why Finn would be angry enough to nearly get thrown out of school, or why Puck would take the fall for him.

“So he picked a fight with Karofsky because he called Finn a homo?”

“Finn says Karofsky threw the first punch,” Rachel says, her forehead creased with another little frown. “I’m not sure I believe that, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter. The point is that he told Karofsky he knew the truth, that he'd kissed you and not the other way around. And Karofsky said you wanted it, then he said...some other things, and Finn felt he had to defend his family, and apparently he just lost his temper.”

She ends with a little shrug, as though it’s not really a big deal. Like that’s just what boys do, lose their temper and then put each other in the hospital over something that’s not even their fight. He and Finn don’t even get along all that well, and while they’re technically related, they’re hardly what he’d call brothers in any emotional sense. So Kurt finds it difficult to believe that Finn would defend him at all, but even more than that, he can’t believe Finn’s even capable of that kind of violence.

“None of this makes any sense,” Kurt says, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose, and if he gets a migraine over this it’s going to make the drive back to school even more unpleasant. “How did Noah...Puck...how did Puck get involved?”

“He and Sam caught the end of the fight. Sam got a black eye and Puck took a few hits when they tried to pull Finn and Karofsky apart. Then Mr. Schue came along and that’s when Puck took the blame. It was probably obvious he was lying; Finn was the one who looked like he’d been in a fight, but Mr. Schue backed up their story with Figgins.”

“But...why?”

Rachel shrugs and glances at the clock on her nightstand. “You’d have to ask Puck. Or you could ask Finn, I guess. He should be here soon.”

He considers staying, confronting Finn and demanding to know why they've both been lying to him for over a month. But he’s confused and angry and...sort of touched at the same time, which brings him right back to confused. So instead he shakes his head and stands up, and when Rachel stands up too he tries for a genuine smile.

“Thank you, Rachel. I appreciate your being honest with me."

“I told Finn he should have told you when it happened,” she says, then she smiles, and for once it's not scary. “It’s good to see you, Kurt. I’m glad you’re happy with the Warblers, even though they beat us at Regionals.”

He lets her walk him to the door, then he endures an awkward hug that neither of them really means. But it feels sort of like they’re in on something now, as though by telling him what happened with Karofsky, Rachel’s...not exactly a friend, but maybe she’s an ally.

Kurt smiles again, and this time it’s not hard to mean it. He waves and climbs back into his truck, then he sits behind the wheel and stares out the windshield and wonders what he’s going to say to Finn and Puck on the ride back to school tomorrow. Then he remembers that he still hasn’t called Blaine, and he sighs and starts the engine.

~

Considering the way their last conversation ended, Kurt expects Puck to claim the back seat and force Finn to ride shotgun. Frankly Kurt would be just as happy if they both sat in the back and let him play chauffeur; it would certainly be more honest, and it would save Kurt the trouble of having to deal with either of them.

And that’s the whole problem; he still hasn’t figured out what to _say_ , exactly, how to let on that he knows and that he’s really not okay with being kept in the dark about something that directly concerns him.

He’s trying out a few different openings in his head when the passenger door swings open, trying to decide between _Rachel told me what really happened_ and _You should both know that Dave Karofsky is a pathological liar_ when he looks over in time to watch Puck climb into his truck.

Apparently he’s not so angry with Kurt that he’s willing to forgo shotgun; Kurt shouldn’t be surprised, because it’s not as though Puck actually cares what he thinks or anything. Still, it’s a little strange to look up and find Puck watching him, eyes dark and guarded but still _watching_ in the same way he’s been doing for the past month.

There’s no sign of Finn, and Kurt glances toward the house and thinks about laying on the horn like some townie because he’s not sure he can stand to be alone with Puck, even for a few minutes. He doesn’t even know why, because it’s not like he hasn’t spent nearly all his waking hours in Puck’s company for the past month. But this feels different somehow, and Kurt can’t tell if it’s because he knows the truth now, or if it’s the _way_ Puck’s looking at him.

“Why does Blaine even have your number?”

The sound of his own voice startles him in the stillness of the Navigator, but Puck doesn’t seem all that surprised by the question. He just lifts one shoulder in a casual shrug and stretches an arm across the back of the seat, hand coming to rest just a few inches from Kurt’s shoulder.

“Fuck if I know. Maybe he got it from my roommate.”

Kurt frowns at him for a second, trying to decide if Puck’s lying. If he is, he’s got a hell of a poker face.

“I’m not frigid, you know,” he says, cheeks flushing crimson as soon as the words escape his mouth.

“Actually I wouldn’t know, Hummel,” Puck says, and Kurt knows it’s his imagination, but for a second it feels like Puck sways just a little closer. “But hey, I take it back. For all I know you’re a total freak behind closed doors. Hell, you must be doing something to keep the guy coming back for more.”

Kurt feels his face heat up and he knows Puck can see that he’s blushing. He can see and he probably thinks that means he’s right, that Kurt’s a complete prude and a blushing virgin and he’s not putting out because he’s afraid or something. And okay, so maybe he’s a little inexperienced, but that’s hardly his fault, given the circumstances.

Besides, there’s nothing wrong with waiting until he’s sure before he jumps into bed with someone. It wouldn’t be fair to Blaine to lead him on like that; Kurt’s been telling himself exactly that since the start, and the fact that Blaine’s patient enough to wait just means Blaine’s a nice guy. A really, _really_ nice guy, which is something Puck couldn’t possibly understand.

“Naturally it would never occur to you that he just enjoys my company.”

Puck’s only answer is a snort of laughter, then he turns to stare out the window and Kurt feels his blush turn up a few degrees. Of course Puck would never think anyone would want to spend time with Kurt just for the sake of being around him; he’s just the weird gay kid, after all, and no one at McKinley ever considered him worth their time. Which is just another reason he left Lima in the first place, and his life would be just fine if Puck had stayed at McKinley where he belonged.

“It’s not my fault you’ve been exiled to Dalton. I’m sure you blame me, but I didn’t ask Finn to put Karofsky in the hospital, and I certainly didn’t ask you to take the fall for him.”

The words are out of Kurt’s mouth before he even knows he’s thinking them. As soon as he starts talking Puck looks at him, expression getting darker with every word until finally he looks like he’d like to shut Kurt’s mouth for him. But Kurt is _not_ intimidated by Noah Puckerman, no matter what he thinks, so he doesn’t flinch when Puck shifts on the seat until he’s leaning into Kurt.

“Who told you that?”

“Rachel,” Kurt answers, chin high and definitely not quivering. “She occasionally has her moments.”

“Fucking Berry,” Puck says, then he rolls his eyes and relaxes a little, and Kurt thinks that maybe he’s not about to die after all. “I told Hudson she’d never keep her big mouth shut.”

For a few seconds he just looks at Kurt while he chews his bottom lip, gears turning somewhere in that thick skull of his and Kurt can’t help watching the way his lip slides out from between his teeth.

“Let’s get something straight right now.”

Kurt gasps at the sound of Puck’s voice, blushing all over again and looking up to find Puck staring at him.

“I don’t blame you for shit, and neither does Hudson. Karofsky got what he had coming, and if Hudson hadn’t beaten me to it, I probably would have put him in the hospital myself. Hell, I don’t even mind Dalton all that much. The food’s pretty good, anyway.”

Kurt blinks and tries to decide if Puck’s actually trying to reassure him. He still sounds angry, but he isn’t looking at Kurt like he wants to kill him anymore, and that’s definitely an improvement.

“I just...why _did_ you take the blame for Finn?”

Puck shrugs and looks away again, right back to staring out the window and chewing on his lip and Kurt’s fingers twitch with the urge to reach out and ease his lip away from his teeth.

“I’ve been to Juvie. No way could Hudson survive that. Anyway, I still owed him for the whole thing with Quinn.” Puck pauses and glances over at Kurt, not quite meeting his eyes before he goes back to staring out the window. “I didn’t do it for you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

And it’s not what he was thinking, not even close, but now that Puck’s said it Kurt can’t _not_ think about it. He can’t even think of a reason why Puck might assume he’d think that, because keeping Finn out of prison doesn’t have anything to do with Kurt. Except that Finn going to Juvie would put a huge emotional strain on Carole, not to mention Kurt’s dad, and Kurt’s not around to look after him anymore.

He swallows against the familiar pang of guilt and looks up at the house, but there’s still no sign of Finn. He has no idea what’s taking so long, because Finn’s not even the one who has to go back to school. He’s just the driver, for all rights and purposes, and there’s no reason Kurt should be stuck alone in his truck with Puck for this long when he’s going to be stuck with Puck practically every waking moment as soon as they get back to school.

“Puck...”

“It’s Noah,” Puck says, voice gruff and Kurt doesn’t bother trying to stifle a laugh.

“Like changing your name makes you any different. You’re still the same person.”

Puck doesn’t look at him, but Kurt’s been watching him for a month now, and he sees the moment when Puck tenses. It’s over so fast he knows most people would have missed it, but it’s there all the same, in the line of Puck’s jaw and the way his fingers clench into a fist before he slowly uncurls them.

“Think what you want.”

And that’s rich, because Puck’s still the same smug bastard he’s always been, even at Dalton, and not solving his problems with his fists hasn’t suddenly transformed him into a nice person.

“Please, don’t try to act like I don’t know you. I know you, _Noah_. You can call yourself whatever you want, but you’re still the same mindless bully who terrorized me and all my friends as though it was a sport. I can’t believe Figgins actually bought that you’d beat up Karofsky in the first place. You’re two of a kind.”

“Oh, fuck you, Kurt,” Puck says, biting out the words as though he’s trying hard not to lose it. And now Kurt is sort of scared, but it’s not because he thinks Puck’s going to hit him. “I’m nothing like that douche. I’d never take _anything_ that wasn’t on offer.”

Puck’s staring at him like he’s never seen Kurt before, like he’s something particularly disgusting that Puck just scraped off the bottom of his shoe. It’s worse than the times Puck’s laughed at him, worse than Puck calling him frigid or a prude or questioning why Blaine would waste his time with Kurt. It’s worse than the way Karofsky used to look at him, like he was just biding his time until he decided whether to kill Kurt or do something far, far worse.

And he hates that Puck knows about what Karofsky did -- hates that anyone knows -- because it was just a kiss, and it still makes him feel completely helpless. It makes him a victim, and he’s spent his whole life working hard not to be a victim. The idea of _Puck_ thinking of him as a victim...well, that’s more than Kurt can handle.

“You once stole an entire ATM.”

As soon as he says it Puck stops looking at him like he feels sort of sorry for Kurt. For a second he looks a lot like Kurt imagines he would if someone slapped him across the face, then his mouth curves into a bizarre imitation of his usual smirk. It looks almost painful, and Kurt’s heart stutters at the thought that _he_ could make Puck look like that.

“Yeah, I did. Got me there, Hummel,” he says, then he’s climbing out of the truck and heading for the house, and Kurt can hear him shouting for Finn even after he slams the Navigator door.

Kurt blinks hard against a sudden stinging in his eyes, tells himself he does not care what Noah Puckerman thinks, doesn’t care about his stupid feelings, because Puck’s never wasted a single second worrying about Kurt’s. So his pride’s been wounded; it’s exactly what he deserves, and anyway he’s certainly not going to lose any sleep over Kurt’s opinion of him.

A minute later the front door opens and Puck reappears with Finn in tow, red-faced and hurrying after him. When they reach the Navigator Puck opens the back door and climbs in without so much as a glance at Kurt, and Kurt’s glad, because it means he won’t see Kurt’s cheeks burning. Finn does look at him, eyebrows raised and mouth open, most likely to ask what’s wrong with Kurt, but before he gets the words out Kurt hears Puck’s voice.

“Leave it,” is all he says, but just like that Finn’s mouth snaps shut. Kurt narrows his eyes at Finn, then glances in the rear view mirror, but Puck’s staring out the window again and refusing to meet his gaze.

He swallows hard and takes a deep breath, then he starts the engine and backs out of the driveway. It’s a long, silent drive back to Dalton, and Kurt spends the entire trip wondering what would have happened if he’d said _what if I’m offering?_ instead.

~

Puck’s out of the Navigator before Kurt even rolls to a complete stop, slamming the door so hard Kurt swears he feels the frame shake. He doesn’t say goodbye to Finn, and Kurt assumes the only reason he takes the time to get his bag out of the back before he disappears is so he doesn’t have to see Kurt later when Kurt returns it.

Not that Kurt would necessarily bother, because he’s certainly not going to be hunting for reasons to talk to Puck.

Finn’s still sitting in the passenger seat, staring out the window in the direction Puck disappeared. When the front door of the dorm building slams shut he turns back to Kurt, mouth open in what would be a comical expression if Kurt didn’t know what was coming.

“What the hell was that?”

Kurt takes a deep breath and flexes his fingers around the steering wheel, then he lets go and turns to face Finn. “Rachel told me the truth about why Puck was sent to Dalton.”

Finn’s cheeks turn predictably red, eyes wide and for a second Kurt thinks he might actually try to deny it. Then his shoulders slump and he lets out a heavy sigh. “Oh.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Right, like I’m just going to call you up at boarding school and say what? ‘Hey, Kurt, I heard you transferred because Karofsky’s stalking you, but I broke one of his ribs and punctured his lung, then I let my best friend take the fall because it turns out I’m a complete coward, so it’s cool if you come home now’. Yeah, that would have gone over huge.”

It’s the first time Kurt’s heard any details about what happened to Karofsky. It’s the first time he’s even wondered, but knowing just how badly Finn hurt him doesn’t make Kurt feel any better. Hearing Finn admit that he regrets letting Puck take the fall doesn’t make Kurt feel much better either, because there’s no taking it back now. Even if Kurt did go to Figgins and tell him the truth about what happened, it would just get Finn expelled, and probably get Puck sent back to Juvie for lying to his parole officer.

“Fine, I suppose telling me wouldn’t have made a difference. But I don’t understand why you did it. I was already gone, what did it matter what lies Karofsky told about me?”

For awhile Finn just looks at him with the same expression he saw on Puck’s face earlier; like Kurt’s someone to be pitied, or maybe just someone who needs protecting.

“Dude, do you even know how hard it was for your dad when you left? I was so _pissed_ at you, because I thought you just transferred so you could be with that Blaine kid or whatever. Meanwhile your dad was moping around and my mom was worried all the time, and she never said anything, but I could tell she was just waiting for him to have another heart attack.”

Finn pauses and Kurt knows he should say something, but his voice is caught in his throat and he can’t seem to get it unstuck no matter how hard he swallows. He knows it’s been hard for his dad to have him so far away; it’s been hard for Kurt too, but he tells himself his father’s okay, that he has Carole now and he doesn’t need Kurt so much anymore. It’s always been a lie and he knows that, but it makes him feel a little less guilty for leaving.

“Then one night I was hungry so I went up to the kitchen to get something to eat, you know. It was like midnight, so I figured Mom and Burt were asleep already. Only when I got up there I heard them in the kitchen, talking about you. Burt was talking about this guy at school who’d been harassing you, how the dude kissed you and kept coming back for more even when you said no. He was talking about how bad he felt that he couldn’t protect you while you were living at home, and how scared he was that you were so far away now where he couldn’t protect you at all.

“I didn’t know who he was talking about at first. It wasn’t until I heard Karofsky bragging to some of the guys about running you off that I realized. I don’t even know why I lost it on him like I did. Maybe because I felt so guilty about being mad at you for leaving. Or maybe because I was worried that Burt would have another heart attack, and I’d lose another dad.”

It’s the first time Finn’s ever referred to Burt as his father. Kurt’s known that he felt that way for a long time, but he always thought hearing Finn say it would make him angry or jealous or both. And he is a little jealous, especially since Finn gets a lot more of his father than Kurt gets these days. But Kurt knows that was his own choice, so mostly he’s just grateful that Finn’s around to pick up the slack he left when he left Lima behind.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

Kurt shrugs and chances a shy smile. “I don’t know. Everything. This whole mess is kind of my fault.”

“No, dude, it’s Karofsky’s fault,” Finn says. “The stuff he said...”

Finn trails off and Kurt doesn’t ask him to elaborate, because he’s fairly certain he doesn’t want to know. He’s not sorry he left McKinley, because it’s clear now that if he’d stayed something worse than a stolen kiss would have happened. But he’s sorry so many other people got caught up in it.

“Why did Puck come home this weekend, anyway?” he asks, mostly because he wants to stop thinking about what would have happened if he hadn’t left when he did. “Mercedes said Santana wasn’t even in town.”

Finn blinks and the shadow that settled over him a moment ago lifts, and then he’s just Finn again. “Yesterday was his Nana’s birthday. She’s pretty awesome. She’s like a million years old but she can still kick Puck’s ass.”

Kurt pictures Puck lounging in his father’s living room like he belonged there, and when he realizes why Puck was there he frowns. “Wait, did you go to Puck’s grandmother’s birthday party with him?”

“Yeah, I mean, I had to bail early to go get Rachel. I thought Puck was going to ask if you wanted to come, but then he took off and when I caught up with him he just said you had better things to do.”

The thought of Puck inviting him to something as bizarre and random and intimate as his grandmother’s birthday celebration takes Kurt by surprise. His breath catches and his chest feels heavy, as though something large and invisible is pressing down on it. He doesn’t know what it means, or even if it means anything at all, and he doesn’t _understand_ it, because when he walked into his living room and found Puck there, he certainly didn’t act like he had plans to extend a party invitation.

Then again, he’d been planning to invite Kurt before he got a phone call from Kurt’s boyfriend. Kurt sighs and closes his eyes for a second, then he shakes his head and takes a breath and tells himself to get a grip. This is _Puck_ he’s talking about, after all, and Puck doesn’t even like him.

“I’m sure he was only including me for your sake.”

“Nah, dude,” Finn says, and when he reaches over and claps Kurt on the shoulder Kurt doesn’t flinch away. “Puck talks about you all the time. He thinks you’re pretty cool, I can tell.”

Finn pushes open the passenger door and climbs out of the truck, and it takes Kurt a second to remember that he’s staying and Finn’s the one driving back to Lima. He hands over the keys and collects his bag, and he’s still too stunned to remember to feel awkward when Finn pats him on the back and tells him to call any time he wants to come home. He’s not sure how long he stands there after Finn drives away, but by the time he turns to the dorm the sun’s already starting to go down.

~

_Puck talks about you all the time._

Finn’s voice has been stuck in a constant loop in Kurt’s head all morning. Since last night, really, and Kurt’s not sure how long he laid awake and replayed those words, but when he wakes up on Monday it feels as though he’s hardly slept at all.

He gets dressed on autopilot, then he follows the rest of his dorm mates down the stairs and toward the dining hall. He catches himself scanning the crowd every few feet for a sign of Puck, but either he’s already downstairs or he hasn’t left his room yet.

It’s not until Kurt reaches the base of the spiral staircase that he remembers he was supposed to call Blaine when he got back last night. He winces and tugs his bag a little higher on his shoulder and considers just going into breakfast, but he knows he’s going to have to face Blaine eventually. He owes him _some_ kind of explanation; he just wishes he had a little more time to think of one.

Long before he’s ready Blaine appears, his usual smile a little guarded and Kurt does his best not to wince. He’s not stupid, after all, and he has to have gathered by now that something’s not right. Kurt forces a smile and leans up to brush his lips against Blaine’s, then he pulls back and smiles a little more genuinely.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call. We got back late and I was tired and it just slipped my mind.”

“It’s fine, I had a Latin test to study for anyway,” Blaine says. He rests a hand on Kurt’s back and guides him toward the dining room, scanning the crowd as they take their place in line and Kurt has to work hard not to follow his gaze. “Where’s Noah?”

Kurt shrugs and does his best not to show just how much the question bothers him. “I wouldn’t know. I think he’s decided to expand his social horizons.”

Blaine raises his eyebrows but doesn’t comment, and Kurt swallows hard against a fresh rush of guilt. Because Blaine’s the perfect boyfriend, loyal and understanding and sweet and not jealous at all, and Kurt wishes he could want all that.

He thinks of the text message saved in his phone and blushes when he realizes that Puck’s right. He has to decide what he wants, or more to the point, he has to _admit_ it, because he’s known for some time now that what he wants isn’t understanding and sweet.

~

Kurt doesn’t see Puck at breakfast, but they share most of the same classes, so Puck can’t avoid him completely. He can pretend Kurt doesn’t exist and sit as far away from him as possible, though, and that’s exactly what he does. All through Geometry Kurt glances to his right, expecting to find Puck lounging at his desk with his blazer hanging open, looking like a Tommy Hilfiger ad and smirking at him.

Instead he finds that pudgy kid from Savannah, the one with the lazy Southern accent whose mother sends him constant care packages of baked goods featuring pecans. He’s a walking cliche, but Kurt doesn’t really mind. What he minds is that he’s not _Puck_ , and that means Kurt’s heart drops into the pit of his stomach every time he looks over and catches sight of dark skin above a too-tight white collar.

Every time it happens he has to remind himself not to look over his shoulder at the desk in the back row, one row over and to his left. Once or twice he looks anyway, and when he does he finds Puck lounging in his chair, legs stretched out and his tie pulled just a little loose and resolutely staring toward the front of the room.

Puck refuses to look at him through European History and English Lit, and even when they split up for their language classes Kurt finds himself seeking out glimpses of that stupid mohawk in the hall. It’s no surprise that Puck doesn’t join him for lunch, but it stings a little anyway, especially when he spots Puck at a table across the room, talking to a couple guys Kurt doesn’t know.

Blaine’s waiting for him at their usual table, and Kurt pushes Puck to the back of his mind and flashes a smile as he slides into the chair across from Blaine’s.

“Everything okay?” Blaine asks.

“Of course, why wouldn’t it be?” Kurt answers, but he sounds a little too cheerful even to his own ears, and he knows Blaine’s not buying it when he smiles and shakes his head.

“It’s just kind of weird, having you all to myself again.”

Kurt feels his smile slip a little and he knows Blaine doesn’t miss it. He knows he has to come clean, but he doesn’t want to do it now. Not here, in front of the entire school.

“Honestly, Puck and I were never even friends,” Kurt says, and that much, at least, isn’t really a lie. “It was only a matter of time before he found someone more like himself to entertain him. Student mentors aren’t forever, right?”

“Right,” Blaine says, but it’s obvious he doesn’t believe Kurt, and Kurt can’t really blame him.

Kurt tells himself not to look at Puck, then he glances across the dining hall anyway, his heart skipping a beat when he finds Puck looking right at him. As soon as their eyes meet Puck looks away, but not before Kurt catches a glimpse of the same wounded expression he saw yesterday, just before Puck said, “Got me there, Hummel,” and got out of his car.

He wants to go over there and tell Puck he’s sorry, beg if he has to, but he’s not even sure what he’d be apologizing for. All he knows is that for awhile Puck wanted to be around him, and somewhere along the way Kurt sort of got used to having him around.

A hand covers his and Kurt blinks and looks up, blushing when he finds Blaine watching him. “Are you sure you’re okay, Kurt? Did something happen while you were home?”

 _Yes,_ Kurt thinks, but he doesn’t say it, because the truth is he doesn’t know _what_ happened. Instead he shakes his head and turns his hand in Blaine’s until he’s sliding their fingers together.

“Nothing happened. It was sort of boring, actually. I’m glad to be back.”

Blaine smiles and squeezes Kurt’s hand, then he stands up and pulls Kurt to his feet. They walk to his next class together, and that’s new, because Blaine’s never walked him to class before. Most of the school is still in the dining hall when they get there, so Kurt leans against the wall next to his classroom and lets Blaine lean into him, rests a hand on his chest and looks down at his fingers where they’re pressed against Blaine’s blazer.

The same blazer they all wear, and if Kurt doesn’t look up he can imagine that this is how his hand would look pressed against Puck’s chest.

As soon as he realizes he’s thinking it he does look up, eyes wide and cheeks burning and he’s the worst kind of liar there is, because he’s been lying to himself as much as everyone else.

“Something did happen this weekend.”

Blaine sighs and Kurt feels him slump a little under his hand, then he pulls away and Kurt curls his hand into his own chest. “You and Noah?”

“I didn’t cheat on you,” Kurt says, not that he has any reason to be proud of that, because he might as well have. “There’s not...there’s no ‘me and Noah’. He won’t even look at me.”

Except that’s not true, because Puck was looking at him just a few minutes ago, and Kurt can still feel those eyes on him even though Puck’s nowhere in sight.

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Kurt.” Blaine smiles then, sad and sort of resigned and Kurt hates himself a little more for letting it get this far. “I admit that I sort of hoped you’d choose me, but I know when to admit defeat.”

“I’m not choosing...” Kurt stops talking abruptly when he hears himself trying to talk Blaine out of breaking up. Because he’s not choosing Puck -- even if he wants to, Puck doesn’t want him back -- but he knows he can’t stay with Blaine, either.

“You’ve been amazing,” Kurt says, and he knows it’s the wrong thing to say. He probably sounds like every bad romantic movie ever made, but he doesn’t have a frame of reference for breaking up with someone. “You were there when no one else was, and I’ll always be grateful for that. I mean, as first boyfriends go, you were pretty much perfect.”

Blaine smiles at that, and it’s a perfect smile. He reaches up and touches Kurt’s cheek, then he lets out a little sigh and pulls his hand away and Kurt wishes all over again that he felt about Blaine the way he feels -- God help him -- about Puck.

“Not so perfect,” Blaine says, still smiling, but it’s sort of wistful now. “I didn’t want to pressure you because of what happened with that football player at your old school. I thought you might need some time before you felt safe again.”

And he was right; Kurt did need time, to come to terms with what did happen and what could have happened. He needed time and distance to realize that what he wants isn’t wrong just because the wrong person tried to force it on him before he was ready, and maybe he needed Noah Puckerman to come along and remind him that a letter jacket and an attitude problem don’t necessarily make someone a complete jerk.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt says, and that’s something he’s been saying a lot lately.

Instead of answering Blaine shakes his head, then he looks down for a few seconds before he looks back up to smile at Kurt. “So you and Noah, huh?”

“No,” Kurt says, maybe a little too forcefully, but he doesn’t want Blaine to walk away believing something that isn’t true. “There’s not...I won’t deny that I have...feelings. But I said some things this weekend, and I don’t think I can take them back.”

“Maybe not,” Blaine says, then he shrugs and flashes Kurt another perfect smile. “But you’ll never know until you try.”

Kurt smiles back and lets Blaine lean in, fingers curling around the edge of Blaine’s blazer as he presses one last kiss to Kurt’s lips. Then he pulls away and takes a couple steps backwards, watching Kurt, just for a few seconds before he turns and walks down the hall toward the senior wing.

It’s not until he’s gone that Kurt realizes there’s someone at the end of the hall, standing in the entrance to the bathroom watching Blaine kiss him goodbye. Puck doesn’t look away when their eyes meet this time, but his smirk is mocking and angry in a way that Kurt hasn’t seen since before Puck joined Glee. His heart twists in his chest and he pushes off the wall, lips parting to say Puck’s name, but before he can breathe a timid “Noah”, Puck’s already walking away.

~

If Kurt’s life were a bad romantic movie, he’d fast forward from the moment Puck saw him breaking up with Blaine to the next time they ran into each other, maybe in a restaurant or coffee shop that used to mean something to them, or even in the grocery store late at night when they’re both on a milk run.

But Kurt’s life is just...his life, and his life is currently playing out in a fairly exclusive school, so he can’t help running into Puck all the time. Only there’s no awkward greeting, no shy smile and ‘how’ve you been’, awkward small talk until finally someone breaks the ice and they can get back to being...whatever. There’s just Puck, a constant presence in his life, like this weird feedback in the background that he can’t quite shake.

They see each other in classes and at meals, in the dorm and in the study lounge. They’re together constantly, but they mostly just pretend they don’t even notice. They don’t speak at all, and Kurt wants to tell Puck that he finally took his advice, that he finally decided what he wants and told Blaine the truth, but he can’t.

He can’t just walk up to Puck and blurt it out, and Puck seems to have made it his mission in life to pretend Kurt doesn’t even exist, so after a week Kurt concedes the fact that they’ve reached a bit of an impasse.

He’s not dating Blaine anymore, but they’ve stayed friends, mostly through virtue of the fact that they’re both Warblers. And the funny thing is that not much has changed about their relationship, other than the fact that Blaine doesn’t reach for his hand anymore and they sit with some of the other Warblers during meals.

Puck’s still sitting on the other side of the dining hall, and Kurt doesn’t ask about his new friends, but he must be looking a little too often, because one night at dinner Blaine leans over and whispers, “Baseball team,” in his ear. Kurt blushes and pretends he doesn’t know what Blaine’s talking about, but they both know it’s a lie.

He considers texting Puck once or twice, just to say that he’s sorry. He owes Puck that much, at least, but somehow a text seems worse than saying nothing at all. So he keeps his distance and he fails at pretending he’s fine with the way things are between them, and he watches Puck getting on with his life.

Which mostly consists of watching Puck, in class or in the study lounge, across the dining hall at meals and on the quad on the weekends, playing touch football with his new friends. Somehow Puck always ends up on the Skins, and it’s not that Kurt’s complaining or anything, but watching Puck sweat while he’s only half-dressed just makes him even more acutely aware of how badly he’s messed up his life.

He still disappears right in the middle of dinner two nights a week, every Monday and Wednesday, just like clockwork. For two weeks Kurt watches him swallow an entire glass of milk and stand up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and glancing in Kurt’s direction without actually looking before he says goodbye to his new friends and walks out of the dining hall.

On the first night of the third week Kurt’s sitting at his usual table, Blaine on one side of him with his arm sort of draped across the back of Kurt’s chair, not touching or anything, but almost like he’s forgotten that they’re not dating anymore. It feels that way sometimes, like he forgets, and Kurt’s really trying to be realistic about this, but he swears every once in awhile he sees Puck casting jealous glances in Blaine’s direction.

They’re right in the middle of a discussion about Warblers tryouts when Puck makes his usual exit, and Kurt stands up right in the middle of a heated debate about whether to break with tradition and hold a special fall tryout for incoming freshmen and follows him out. Vaguely he registers the sound of Blaine saying his name, but he doesn’t look back. He just follows Puck out of the dining hall, keeping his distance as they cross the foyer and Puck pulls open the front door.

He waits until he thinks it’s safe and eases the door open again, slipping out after Puck and scanning the grounds for a glimpse of him. When he sees Puck already halfway across the quad Kurt hurries after him, right to the edge of the quad and a group of low brick buildings he’s never been in before. He thinks they might be administrative offices, but there’s no sign out front to tell him.

Puck knocks on one of the doors and waits a few seconds, then he pulls it open and disappears inside. Kurt waits, but after fifteen minutes Puck still hasn’t come back out. Half an hour passes while Kurt imagines all kinds of scenarios, from Puck being tutored in Geometry -- a job Kurt was handling just fine, thank you very much, until Puck stopped speaking to him -- to Puck engaging in some sort of clandestine rendezvous with a girl from town or worse, a member of the faculty.

Kurt’s stomach twists and he grips his messenger bag a little tighter, willing himself to turn around and go back to the dorms when finally the door opens again and Puck steps out. He’s followed by a woman, but she’s older than Kurt expected and a little thick around the middle, with white hair and those wire-rimmed glasses with a beaded chain hanging around her neck. She’s wearing a flowing two-piece ensemble that looks as though it’s made of some sort of dyed burlap, and Kurt’s not sure whether to be more scandalized by her age, or her bad fashion sense.

He knows he should make his escape before Puck turns around and sees him, but Puck’s got his hands in his pockets and he’s smiling at the woman and Kurt’s legs have betrayed him completely, because he seems to be rooted to the spot. He can’t do anything but watch as Puck says something else that makes the woman smile, then Puck smiles back at her and gives her a little wave and turns back toward the school.

It takes a moment or two for him to spot Kurt, but when he does his grin fades and he shakes his head and changes direction. Before Kurt has time to make a break for it Puck’s standing in front of him, expression completely unreadable and Kurt isn’t sure whether to be terrified or just sad.

“So, what, are you stalking me now?”

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Kurt says, his cheeks flushing and it only gets worse when Puck smirks at him. “If you must know, I was curious where it is you sneak off to during dinner. I can’t say I’m surprised to find you with an older woman, though I have to say, she hardly seems like your usual type.”

Kurt expects Puck to flash that feral grin and tell Kurt beggars can’t be choosers or something. It’s obvious Puck isn’t having an affair with whoever that woman is, but Kurt sort of expects him to pretend he is, just to get Kurt to back off. What he doesn’t expect is for Puck to roll his eyes and start walking back toward the school, leaving Kurt to scurry after him.

“She’s my therapist, genius,” Puck says, glancing back at Kurt for some kind of reaction. “Anger management, every Monday and Wednesday after classes. That’s how Schue got them to let me come here instead of shipping me back to Juvie. He smoothed it over with my social worker. She just gave me the all clear to try out for baseball. Says I’m progressing ‘more quickly than expected’, whatever that means.”

“It means you didn’t need anger management in the first place,” Kurt says, but he’s not entirely convinced it’s true. Puck has changed a lot since he came to Dalton, and if two therapy sessions a week is the reason, then maybe Mr. Schuester did him a favor when he let Puck take the blame for Finn.

“Yeah, well, whatever, as long as they let me play baseball. I have to do something, I’m going crazy in this place.”

Kurt bites down hard on the urge to suggest that Puck could just start following him around all the time again. After all, it seemed to keep him pretty busy for the first month, so there’s no reason Kurt couldn’t be a distraction again. And he wants to be a distraction; the trouble is that once he admits it, Puck’s going to expect him to follow through, and Kurt’s not sure if he can.

“Warblers tryouts are tomorrow. If, you know, you’re interested. It’s more competitive than New Directions, but the director’s not obsessed with Journey, so that’s a plus.”

“Yeah, I know,” Puck says, casting a sidelong glance at him. “Your boy told me last week.”

“Blaine’s not...he’s not my boy,” Kurt says, cheeks burning as his mouth forms the word ‘boy’. “We broke up.”

“Why? Did he finally ask for something more than a peck on the cheek?”

Puck’s smile makes Kurt think of rough hands and a sea of letter jackets and the smell of garbage in a heavy metal dumpster. He flinches and crosses his arms over his chest, wondering for the thousandth time what he’s doing. Why he’s even _trying_ when this thing with Puck doesn’t even make any sense.

His mouth opens to snap a cutting response, something unimaginative like _it’s none of your business_ or _unlike you, Blaine’s actually a gentleman_ , but before he gets the words out there’s a hand on his shoulder, then Puck’s turning Kurt to face him.

“He didn’t do something to you, did he? Jesus, Hummel, if he did...”

Kurt’s not a victim. He doesn’t need protecting, not from his brother or Blaine or even Puck. But the way Puck’s looking at him makes his heart beat a little faster, and the hand on his shoulder feels warm and solid and he wants to keep it there as long as he can.

“Think about who we’re talking about, Noah.”

For a second Puck just stares at him with those dark eyes and that intense expression, gaze wandering the length of Kurt’s body like maybe he’s looking for some sign that there’s something not quite right. When he doesn’t find one he nods and lets go, and it takes every ounce of self-control Kurt’s got not to reach for his hand and put it back on his shoulder again.

“Guess you’ve got a point. Still, that dude is so nice there _has_ to be something wrong with him.”

Kurt opens his mouth to defend Blaine, then he remembers that he doesn’t have to anymore. Not that he thinks there’s anything wrong with genuinely being a nice person, but he figures it’s okay if he lets Puck think there is, at least when it comes to his ex-boyfriend.

Instead he smirks and casts a sidelong glance at Puck as they turn to walk back toward the school again. His blazer’s open and his tie’s loose, and Kurt can see a glimpse of golden skin right at the base of his neck. He feels his cheeks burn again and hopes Puck will chalk it up to embarrassment over his protective streak.

“Maybe I broke up with him to get you to stop asking ridiculous questions about my sex life.”

“You dumped your boyfriend for me? I’m flattered, Hummel.”

Puck grins at him then, and he’s joking, but there’s something about the way he’s looking at Kurt that makes Kurt think maybe it doesn’t have to be a joke. That if he just says the right thing, everything will change between them, only for the better this time. But he doesn’t know what Puck wants to hear, so he just shrugs and looks away, down the quad to the row of tall pines blocking the sports complex from view.

“You were there, actually. It was the day after we got back from Lima, in the hall outside English.”

And it’s not a confirmation, but it’s not a denial either. If Puck wants to think he’s the reason Kurt ended things with Blaine...well, it’s as close to the truth as any other reason he could give. “You were right, you know. About me needing to decide what I want.”

“Yeah?” Puck says, and his voice sounds a little rough, but when Kurt looks over at him Puck’s not looking back. “So did you figure out what you want?”

“I think I’m getting there.”

They’re almost to the stairs when Kurt stops, and as soon as he realizes Kurt’s not next to him anymore Puck turns around to look at him. And if Kurt were any good at this sort of thing, this would be the moment when he just tells Puck the truth, just opens his mouth and says, “What I want is you.”

He doesn’t have a single reason to think Puck’s any less painfully straight than he was during their entire career at McKinley, and even if he is suddenly embracing his bi-curious side, Kurt doesn’t have a reason to assume Puck wants to...well, embrace anything with Kurt specifically. He’s never been the type to delay gratification, after all, and Kurt always assumed that someone like Puck would just take what they wanted and ask questions later.

_I don’t take anything that’s not on offer._

The words ring in Kurt’s head, Puck’s voice low and dangerous and sending a shiver down his spine even though he said them over two weeks ago. He thinks he finally understands what Puck was saying, and he thinks he understands now why Puck was so angry when Kurt made a stupid, thoughtless joke about the ATM.

“Noah, I...”

Puck’s just standing there looking at him, the flaps of his blazer catching a little in the warm spring breeze. He’s as beautiful as ever, maybe even moreso in his uniform, and Kurt wishes more than anything that he knew what to do. But this is Puck’s area of expertise, and if he’s not going to help, Kurt’s not sure how to get there on his own.

“Why?” he finally says, and when he sees something flash in Puck’s eyes he knows that’s not what Puck was expecting to hear. “I understand why you took the fall for Finn. It was more noble than I would have given you credit for, I admit, and I’m glad that Schue stepped in and made sure you didn’t pay an even higher price for someone else’s mistake. But once you got here, you didn’t have to hang around me. We were never friends, even in Glee. You could have just ignored me and gotten on with your life.”

Puck sighs and reaches up to rest a hand at the back of his neck, rubbing a little and Kurt wonders if he’s always tense after therapy. Wonders if Puck would let him rub that tension out of his shoulders, peel his blazer and his tie off and then his shirt, until he’s down to skin that Kurt’s seen more than once, but never imagined he’d get a chance to touch.

“Do you know what Hudson said to me when he found out Schue got me in here?” Puck asks. He’s looking right at Kurt, but when Kurt shakes his head Puck looks away, across the grounds in the direction they just came.

“He asked me not to be an asshole to you. Said I could pretend you didn’t exist if I wanted, but that you’d already put up with enough bullshit and you didn’t deserve any more. He didn’t come right out and say it like you did, but he was thinking the same thing: that I’m no different from Karofsky.”

Kurt’s stomach clenches at the thought, because that wasn’t what he’d meant when he said those words to Puck. He’d been a bully and a jerk, yes, and in some ways he _had_ been just like Karofsky. Brutish and thoughtless and hiding behind a letter jacket, and it wasn’t until his fall from grace with Glee and then the baby scandal that Puck finally realized what it was like on the other side.

But no matter what Puck was back then, he was never a _rapist_.

It’s the first time Kurt’s let himself think the word. He’s not even positive it applies to Karofsky, and if it had ended with the one kiss he never would have thought it at all. But there were the looks in the halls for weeks after, the whispered threats and the winks and Kurt shivers at the memory, and he wraps his arms tight around himself.

“Finn was wrong. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have said that, Noah. I didn’t even mean it, not the way it sounded. I’m sorry.”

Puck waves off the apology, like maybe he thinks he doesn’t deserve it. “No, he was right. I was a dick to you for a long time, and you didn’t deserve it. So when I got here, I figured I’d look out for you. Have your back, make sure everything was cool and you weren’t just blowing smoke so your old man wouldn’t worry.”

Puck shrugs and looks at him again, and Kurt’s heart does a somersault in his chest.

“It started as a favor for Finn. But after awhile...I don’t know, I kinda liked hanging out with you.”

“It _was_ sort of nice, having my own personal shadow,” Kurt admits, chancing a smile and when Puck laughs his heart flutters all over again.

“I don’t think your boyfriend appreciated it much.”

“He doesn’t get a vote anymore.”

He could be wrong, because Kurt still doesn’t have a lot of practical experience, and things between him and Blaine were never this...awkward. They didn’t have the kind of history he and Puck have, for one, and it turns out that makes a difference. So Kurt doesn’t _know_ or anything, but he thinks Puck might actually be flirting with him.

For a minute they just stand there, the words sort of hanging in the air between them and Kurt knows he should do something, say something witty or clever or just _true_ , like, “I miss you.”

He thinks if he just knew the right thing to do that Puck would give him whatever he asked for. Only he has no idea how to ask, and another minute ticks by with both of them just standing there, letting the silence grow.

“I gotta go,” Puck finally says, gesturing toward the dorms and Kurt’s nodding, but all he can think is _he’s leaving?_ “We’ve got this group project deal for Spanish and my group’s supposed to get together, like, ten minutes ago.”

“Oh,” Kurt says, then, “Of course. I’ll just see you later.”

“Yeah,” Puck says, and he doesn’t sound all that much like he wants to go, but he’s backing toward the stairs anyway. “See you later, Kurt.”

Then he’s gone, and Kurt stands at the bottom of the stairs for a long time, wondering what he should have said to make Puck stay.

~

He doesn’t see Puck for the rest of the night. Not that Kurt has any reason to think he will, but he still drags himself to bed far later than he should feeling vaguely disappointed. On Tuesday he showers and brushes his teeth and gets dressed, just the same as every morning, lecturing himself the entire time about the dangers of expecting too much.

There’s no reason to think things are going to go back to the way they used to be just because they had one conversation. So Kurt apologized and Puck accepted -- more or less -- and the air’s clear now. All that really means is they can both get on with their lives without the weight of that conversation in the Navigator hanging over them. It doesn’t mean Puck’s going to start following him around again, even if Kurt all but admitted how much he misses it.

He sighs and wanders down to breakfast, waves at a few members of the Warblers and takes his place in line. And he’s not looking -- he’s _not_ \-- but the line’s right there in front of him, so he can’t really help noticing Puck standing with his friends a little way ahead of him.

Kurt doesn’t realize he’s staring until Puck looks over at him, then turns back to his friends and says something before he steps out of line and walks back to Kurt.

“Hey.”

“Good morning,” Kurt says, his heart thudding hard against his ribcage when Puck slides into line next to him. He thinks about telling Puck he didn’t have to leave his friends for Kurt’s sake, but he doesn’t want Puck to take it the wrong way, and he doesn’t want Puck to leave, either, so instead he says, “how’d the Spanish project go?”

Puck shrugs and shoves his hands in the pockets of his uniform pants, rocking on his heels a little and Kurt’s not positive, but he thinks he’s actually witnessing Noah Puckerman _nervous_.

“Okay, I guess. This one dude did most of the work. Total overachiever. He kind of reminded me of you the last time Mr. Schue made us split up into guys versus girls and you went totally nuts with the costumes and stuff.”

Kurt blushes and opens his mouth to point out that they were doing traditionally female music, so who better to take over, really? But that was right around the time the whole thing with Karofsky started, and it was the week he met Blaine, and he doesn’t really want to think about any of that.

“So are you coming to tryouts today?” Kurt asks, and Puck grins and lets him change the subject.

“I don’t know, seems like the competition’s pretty steep. I mean, I’ve thought about it some and I’ve got a number I’ve kind of been messing around with, but I’m not sure it’s right for those guys.”

“The competition is steep,” Kurt agrees, “but you’ve got a really strong voice, Noah. I always thought you were even stronger than Finn. If it weren’t for Mr. Schuester’s inappropriate crush on my stepbrother, we both would have been featured more.”

“Dude, seriously,” Puck says, and Kurt can’t help laughing at the look on his face. “I thought I was the only one who noticed the total boner Schue had for Hudson.”

And okay, that’s a little more graphic a description than Kurt would use, but it amounts to the same thing. Schue’s had a hard-on for Finn’s voice, at least, since sophomore year, and if he has any other interest in Finn, Kurt really doesn’t want to know.

“So you’ll try out, then?”

“Sure, if it means that much to you,” Puck says. “Baseball tryouts aren’t until Friday anyway.”

“Good.” Kurt smiles and picks up his tray, then he realizes that they never actually said they were having breakfast together. For a moment he just stands there, blushing and wondering if this is where he’s supposed to say goodbye and go sit with the Warblers while Puck goes back to the baseball team.

Then Puck nods toward a free table and sort of grins at him, like maybe he’s laughing at Kurt, just a little. And he probably is, but Kurt doesn’t even care anymore. He follows Puck to the table and slides into the chair across from him, watching him spread butter on his toast.

“So what are you planning to sing?”

“You’ll find out at tryouts, just like everybody else.”

Puck grins and takes a bite of toast, and Kurt watches his throat move for a few seconds before he catches himself and looks up again.

“Seriously? You’re not going to tell me.”

“You wouldn’t know it anyway,” Puck answers. “Why, are you worried I’m going to embarrass you or something?”

“No,” Kurt says, blushing even harder because he’s not worried, except that okay, maybe he is, a little. Puck _is_ the guy who refused to sing anything but songs written and performed by Jews the entire time they were in New Directions, after all.

“It’s just...this is a serious show choir, Noah. It’s not like New Directions. That was just Mr. Schuester recapturing his misspent youth and Rachel enjoying the sound of her own voice far too much. It was fun and all, but let’s face it, it was kind of a joke.”

“Better not let Berry hear you say that,” is all Puck says, then he turns his attention to his breakfast and refuses to talk about it anymore.

~

Kurt spends the rest of the day trying to get Puck to cough up the name of the song he’s been working on. He tries begging, he tries threatening, he even tries reasoning, but Puck just laughs every time and accuses Kurt of not trusting him. Which he doesn’t, really, because Puck’s never chosen the best songs to showcase his voice, and there’s no reason to assume he’s suddenly developed better taste in music over the past few months.

He holds out all through their classes and every meal, shaking his head and flashing a vaguely affectionate smile every time Kurt tries to steer the conversation back to tryouts. After awhile Kurt stops caring so much about the name of the song, but he keeps asking anyway, because he’s starting to get addicted to that smile.

Once dinner’s over and they’re actually on their way to tryouts, however, his panic at the thought of Puck’s poor taste in music comes back in full force.

“Just, please, whatever you do, don’t tell the director that you only sing songs by Jews, okay?”

The look Puck gives him this time is less affectionate than it is exasperated. “I only started that to annoy Berry anyway. I never refused to sing anything that wasn’t written by a Jew, did I?”

“No,” Kurt admits, but that’s not really the point and they both know it. “I know how talented you are, Noah. I just want to make sure everyone else here sees that too.”

Puck stops just outside the choir room and reaches out, catching Kurt by the wrist and pulling him back into the hallway. He leans in close and Kurt’s breath catches in his throat, gaze focused on Puck’s mouth as his lips curve into a familiar smile.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he says, dropping his voice so that Kurt has to sway a little closer to hear. “But you gotta relax, Kurt. I got this.”

Then Puck lets go of his wrist and steps around him, into the choir room and toward the table where the other hopefuls are lined up to put their names on the sign-up sheet. For a long moment Kurt just stands in the hallway and stares at the wall, wondering what Puck would have done if Kurt leaned in and kissed him.

When he finally follows Puck into the choir room auditions are already underway. He takes a seat near the back so he won’t interrupt the freshman currently belting out a number from _Godspell_ , of all things. Kurt passes the time searching the room for Puck, spotting him on the opposite side of the room leaning back in a chair, arms crossed over his chest and his legs stretched out in front of him.

He looks over when Kurt spots him, smirking from across the room and nodding toward the kid singing, and Kurt rolls his eyes and fails to stifle a smile. And he’s not making fun of the freshman -- his voice actually isn’t terrible -- but his song choice could certainly use some help. Then again, if they’re going to let the Christian contingent have their say, maybe Puck _should_ stick with the Jewish theme, just to even the score.

Kurt drags his gaze away from Puck as the last strains of “God Save the People” reverberate around the room. Blaine’s sitting in the front row with some of the other seniors, listening attentively and standing up to thank the kid when he finishes. He’s got the roster in his hand and he scans the list for a few seconds before he looks up, grinning at the hopefuls waiting in the chairs across the room.

“Noah Puckerman. Looks like you’re up.”

Kurt doesn’t know if it’s a breach of etiquette, calling the names out of order that way. He knows as well as Blaine does that Puck’s name is near the bottom of the list, so he should be left to sweat out the auditions for as long as possible. But none of the other Warblers seems to have an issue with it, so maybe it’s tradition to keep the hopefuls on their toes by calling them out of order.

Puck stands up and rolls his shoulders, and Kurt sits forward in his chair and chants _pleasenotBillyJoelpleasenotBillyJoel_ over and over in his head. He watches Puck walk to the center of the room, and the thing is, he’s heard Puck sing countless times, but he’s never heard him sing a cappella. Not that he has any doubt Puck will do fine. He clutches the sides of his chair anyway, knuckles white and leaning forward as Puck clears his throat and glances at him.

“This is something I’ve been messing around with for a little while now,” Puck says. “It’s a little rough, but you should get the picture.”

Then he opens his mouth and launches into a song Kurt’s never heard before. It’s sort of slow and a little gritty, the kind of song that suits the lower end of Puck’s range. It lets him growl around the chorus, something about going home to someone and putting on some kind of show. It takes a little while and some more nonsensical lyrics, but finally it dawns on Kurt what Puck meant by ‘messing around’ with the song.

The lyrics are bizarre and they mostly don’t make any sense, but somehow they get their point across anyway. They’re about falling for someone and cutting through all the dating rules and just being with the person you want to be with, and only Puck could have written them.

He sounds good. Not tremendous or anything; he probably sounded better that time he sang Sammy, but it’s obvious he feels every word of this song in a way Kurt hasn’t seen since that one time he sort of sang about his daughter. He sounds _honest_ , and by the time he’s done some of the Warblers are keeping time with their feet or their hands.

Kurt’s never sat in on auditions before, but he’s pretty sure that’s a good sign. Then Blaine stands up again, reaching out to shake Puck’s hand and thank him for the audition.

“I didn’t recognize that one,” he says, and if Kurt didn’t know better he’d think there was a hint of challenge in Blaine’s voice. “Who wrote it?”

“I did,” Puck says, shrugging and glancing over at Kurt and it’s a weird moment, because he knows Blaine’s okay with their break-up, but it’s sort of strange to see him facing off with Puck.

“Wow, that’s really impressive,” Blaine says, and his smile looks just as genuine as usual from where Kurt’s sitting. “But that’s not really what we do.”

Kurt sort of expects Puck to get defensive, maybe say something like, “What, you don’t sing?”, or maybe the ever-popular, “Whatever, dude.” Instead he just nods and glances over at Kurt again, grinning before he turns his back to Blaine and takes his seat.

He doesn’t have to stay; Kurt’s required to be there, but as soon as their audition’s over, the rest of them can go if they want. But Puck sits through the rest of the auditions anyway, leaning over to whisper to one of the other guys every once in awhile. Every so often he looks over at Kurt, and when he catches Kurt looking at him he just laughs and shakes his head and turns his attention back to the auditions.

It takes two hours to get through all the auditions, and by the time they’re through Kurt wants nothing more than to go back to the dorms and badger Puck until he tells Kurt when, exactly, he started writing his own music. But the Warblers have to discuss the auditions and make some decisions about who to call back, and that means Kurt probably won’t get to talk to Puck at all until tomorrow.

He waits until Blaine thanks everyone for trying out and promises to post the call-back list by lunch the next day before he stands up, lingering in the back of the room until Puck crosses the room to stop in front of him.

“So technically that song _was_ written by a Jew,” Puck says, grinning when Kurt laughs.

“I gathered,” Kurt says. “It was really good, Noah. I had no idea you wrote your own music.”

Puck shrugs, but he’s smiling like he’s surprised that Kurt actually liked it. “It’s part of my therapy or whatever. Sounds better with a guitar behind it, but it seemed like it went okay.”

“I’d like to hear it sometime. With the guitar, I mean.”

Puck grins and sways a little closer, voice dropping into that low growl that sends blood rushing to all sorts of inconvenient places. “If you want to hang out with me, you can just say so, Hummel.”

Kurt feels his whole face flush, and he opens his mouth even though he has no idea what to say to that. He could deny it, but that would be a lie and they’d both know it. Or he could just admit that he does want to hang out with Puck, and he doesn’t even care what they do. Except he’s pretty sure he _has_ admitted that.

“Kurt, are you coming or what?”

The sound of his name makes him blush even harder, and Kurt and Puck both look over to find Blaine and most of the Warblers looking at them. He swallows against the rush of guilt and embarrassment and turns back to Puck, but before he embarrasses himself even further Puck rests a hand on his bicep and leans in to whisper right next to his ear.

“I don’t think your boy likes me much anymore.”

“Ex,” Kurt corrects him.

“Yeah,” Puck says, grinning at him up close and it makes Kurt’s heart stutter in his chest. “I think that’s the problem.”

Then he’s gone, and he still hasn’t kissed Kurt, which admittedly is the right approach, considering Blaine clearly isn’t as okay with the concept of Kurt and Noah as he pretended, but that doesn’t make Kurt feel any less like he was just cheated out of something amazing.

~

In Kurt’s opinion, it takes far too long to decide who to call back for the next round of tryouts. It should be an easy decision; it was clear who was right for the group and who wasn’t, and Puck’s at the top of Kurt’s personal callback list.

It’s not even because he’s biased; Puck has a great voice, and he’ll fill a gap in their range that will be left when this year’s seniors graduate. He’s not surprised that Blaine waffles a little on letting Puck in, as though it will even matter to him next year when he’s in college, singing with a new show choir. He’s not surprised that a couple of Blaine’s friends back him up, either, and as the newest member of the group -- and the one who got special dispensation for dating a senior member -- Kurt’s vote doesn’t exactly count for much.

And it’s weird, because he’s a Warbler now and Puck’s still a piece of his history that was part of New Directions, but Puck’s starting to be more than either of those things, and Kurt doesn’t want to choose between show choir and someone who’s important to him.

In the end he doesn’t have to, because Blaine and his Yes Men are mostly shouted down by the rest of the group. It’s all very polite -- nothing like the name-calling and insults that made up the bulk of their ‘debates’ about artistic style in New Directions -- but Kurt can’t help thinking that Blaine’s smile when he bows to the group’s wishes is just a little bitter.

So Puck’s in, at least for the second round of callbacks, and Kurt tries not to be smug about it, because sure, he’s a Warbler now, but he used to be a member of New Directions, and he wouldn’t have wasted his time if they’d been completely untalented.

He tries to keep the news to himself the next morning at breakfast, because the callback sheet hasn’t been posted yet and he’s not supposed to give anyone advance information. So he tries to act normal when Puck catches up with him in the dining room, but his lips keep quirking up at the corners and finally Puck laughs and rests a hand on Kurt’s back, then he leans close and says, “Awesome poker face, Hummel.”

Kurt turns pink, of course, but Puck, at least, knows how to play it cool, and anyone who happens to glance their way is more likely to think Puck just said something embarrassingly intimate than that he guessed he’s made it through the first round of auditions. His hand’s still resting on Kurt’s back, large and warm and Kurt can’t help wondering how it would feel in his own hand. On his skin, or reaching up to loosen Kurt’s tie. Or leaving his tie just the way he finds it and using it to pull Kurt forward into a kiss.

This time he flushes hot and red, fingers gripping the edges of his tray hard as he lets Puck steer him through the dining room to their usual table. When they reach their seats Puck’s hand leaves his back, which makes it a little easier to breathe, but Kurt wishes he would keep touching anyway.

“So,” he says, and when his voice cracks he clears his throat and tries again. “So have you considered what you might sing, if you’re called back for the second round of auditions?”

Puck glances toward the table where Blaine and some of the other Warblers are sitting, then he lets out a little huff of laughter under his breath and turns back to Kurt. “Maybe I better play it safe this time. Guess I could bust out some Journey, just for old times’ sake.”

“Dear God, no.”

“What, you forgetting where you came from already, Hummel?” Puck says, one corner of his mouth turned up in a familiar smirk, and when Kurt imagines kissing that expression right off Puck’s face his hands shake so hard he has to set his coffee back on the table. “Mr. Schue would be totally hurt.”

“I’m not in any danger of forgetting where I come from with you around to remind me.”

It’s true, and for awhile it was so annoying he spent half his time wanting to scream. But now...now he doesn’t want to forget how they got here.

“Guess I better stick around, then,” Puck says, watching Kurt over the glass of milk he drinks every single morning. Full fat, no doubt, and Kurt has no idea where he’s putting it these days, because he’s not playing football anymore, but he’s still just as perfect as ever.

Kurt pictures what he’s seen of Puck in locker rooms over the years and flushes bright red all over again. But he doesn’t look away, and when Puck just grins at him, Kurt smiles back and picks up his coffee again. So he’s going to be permanently blushing from now on; he doesn’t even care, as long as Puck keeps his word about sticking around.

They’re halfway through European History when a piece of paper lands on Kurt’s desk, and he glances toward the front of the room to make sure their teacher hasn’t noticed before he unfolds it and reads the single line:

_KISS?_

At first he thinks Puck’s, like, _asking permission_ , which is sweet and kind of weird and totally unnecessary. Then he realizes they’re in the middle of a lecture on the French Revolution, and making an appointment to kiss Kurt seems a little out of character for Puck.

He glances over anyway, rolling his eyes when he finds Puck smirking at him. Because of _course_ that’s exactly the conclusion he expected Kurt to jump to, and now that he doesn’t have football, making Kurt blush is probably his new favorite sport.

 _Too emotional,_ Kurt writes back, and when their teacher turns his back he hands the paper across the aisle. Puck’s fingers close around his, just for a second, but somehow time slows down until all Kurt can feel is the warm drag of skin against skin as Puck’s fingers slide the note out of his hand.

Kurt swallows hard and turns back to the front of the room, and even though there are no more notes tossed onto his desk, he doesn’t hear another word of the lecture.

The next note comes during Geometry, while they’re supposed to be working out a particularly tricky problem involving scalene triangles. Kurt’s fingers close around the note as soon as it lands on his desk, but he doesn’t open it right away. He waits until he’s sure their teacher hasn’t noticed before he unfolds it, glancing down at the paper and choking on a surprised snort of laughter.

He glances toward the front of the room, then over at Puck, who’s watching him with those dark eyes and a vaguely amused smile. _No,_ Kurt mouths, then he tucks the evidence into the pocket of his blazer and doesn’t look over at Puck for the rest of class.

As soon as their teacher dismisses them Puck follows Kurt out of the classroom, his features schooled into an innocent frown. “What have you got against Neil?”

“I don’t even know where to start,” Kurt says, and he is not going to laugh, because that will just encourage Puck, and if they get caught passing notes and land themselves in detention, they’ll both miss the second round of auditions.

“You got anything against Bob Marley?”

And he doesn’t, really, except that Bob Marley seems a little more like Sam’s wheelhouse than Puck’s. He opens his mouth to say so, but what comes out is, “If I wanted to date Sam Evans I would have just stayed at McKinley.”

It doesn’t necessarily have to mean what it sounds like it means, but Puck’s not stupid, regardless of what Kurt thought of him before he actually got to know Puck. In fact, when it comes to reading people Puck’s miles ahead of Kurt, and when Kurt ventures a glance in his direction, Puck doesn’t even look surprised.

He doesn’t look like he’s thinking about killing Kurt or even messing him up a little, just to teach him a lesson. Mostly he just looks like he’s been waiting around for Kurt to catch up with him for awhile.

“That’s good to know. I’ll see you at lunch, Kurt.”

One last flash of that stupid, perfect smile and he’s gone, disappearing into his Spanish classroom and leaving Kurt standing in the middle of the hall, blushing furiously and wondering if that means he and Puck are dating, and if so, how long it’s been going on without his knowledge.

~

The callback list is posted right before lunch, and even though Kurt doesn’t have to look to know Puck’s name is on it, he wanders over anyway, easing his way through the crowd to scan the list. And there it is, halfway down, _Noah Puckerman_ printed in neat twelve-point Times New Roman.

Kurt smiles and turns to squeeze his way back through the crowd, but as soon as he does he collides with a warm, solid chest. The first thing he sees is the blazer, which doesn’t tell him anything, but before he even looks up he knows who it is.

“No last minute bait and switch, then?” Puck asks, and when he feels the words rumble through Puck’s chest Kurt learns the meaning of ‘swooning’.

“Of course not,” he says, and he’s aware that he sounds a little breathy, but in his defense, the crowd around them is thick. “Why would there be?”

Puck doesn’t answer right away; instead he reaches out, and at first Kurt thinks he’s going to close that hand of his around Kurt’s wrist again. Then his hand slides further down, closing around Kurt’s own hand and pulling him out of the crowd. Kurt swallows hard and lets Puck lead him to the edge of the foyer and into the dining hall. He doesn’t let go right away, and Kurt’s so busy trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Puck’s _holding his hand_ that the sound of Puck’s voice surprises him.

“All I know is if you’d dumped me for some other guy, I’d be pissed enough to want to break shit, and if that wasn’t an option, I’d be looking for other ways to make the dude pay.”

Then he lets go of Kurt’s hand and picks up a tray, chatting up the dining hall staff while he chooses his lunch and all Kurt can do is trail after him and try not to humiliate himself in front of the entire school.

He makes it to their table without dropping his tray or tripping over his own feet or blurting out something inappropriate and humiliating like “I love you”, and when did he fall in love with Noah Puckerman, exactly? Kurt blinks and looks across the table to find Puck watching him, his expression dark and kind of guarded, that combination of nerves and hope that Kurt never imagined he’d see on Puck, of all people.

Puck who’s taken whatever he wanted for as long as Kurt can remember, who doesn’t ask permission and certainly doesn’t waste his time worrying about what other people think. But he formed that opinion before he knew Puck, back when they were just ‘the gay kid’ and ‘the bully’, ‘the loser and the jock’, roles neither of them chose, but they played flawlessly.

In all that time they were never...this. Now they’re just Kurt and Noah, and they’re the ones who get to choose what that means.

“It doesn’t matter what you sing,” Kurt says. He hasn’t even looked down at his lunch, has no idea what they’re even serving today, because the butterflies in his stomach are rioting and he’s fairly sure he won’t be able to eat anyway. “Whatever you choose, you’ll be the best one there.”

Puck’s smile this time is slow and warm and Kurt feels it all the way to his toes. It curls in his stomach, making the butterflies flutter a little faster and he feels kind of queasy, but it’s not entirely unpleasant. His skin feels sort of tight and there’s a steady hum of anticipation thrumming in his veins, making him feel jumpy and a little buzzed, like that brief period in sophomore year when April Rhodes supplied him with a daily shot of post-breakfast courage.

He thinks maybe he should say something, make a suggestion for a song, just to break the tension. Only he kind of _likes_ the tension, and Puck doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to break it either. Then someone claps Puck on the shoulder and just like that the moment’s gone, and Kurt watches Puck grin and shake the hand of the Warbler who’s stopped by their table to congratulate him, and he doesn’t imagine stabbing the kid with his fork just for interrupting what he’s pretty sure was one of the most important moments of his life.

After that they’re interrupted every few minutes by current members of the show choir and even other hopefuls, and some of them pull up chairs at the table to talk to Puck about the song he wrote or if he’s thought at all about what he’s going to sing for the second round of auditions. Some of the other hopefuls seem like they’re fishing around for advice, and Kurt feels like pinching himself, because there’s no way this is really happening.

The part where everyone wants to be around Puck is no surprise, but the part where they’re asking his musical advice is a little unexpected, and the part where he keeps looking to Kurt for input is even weirder. And he minds that they don’t get another chance to be alone before their afternoon classes start, but he can’t do anything about it, so he doesn’t complain when some of Puck’s new entourage follows them out of the dining hall and toward their classroom.

Puck doesn’t seem to mind all that much, but he keeps glancing over as though he’s making sure Kurt’s still there, and really, that seems a little unnecessary, because where else would Kurt be? He smiles at the thought and takes a deep breath, then he reaches out and catches Puck’s hand before he can talk himself out of it.

As soon as his hand closes around Puck’s their fingers slide together, then Puck squeezes his hand and looks over to grin at him before he goes right back to whatever he’s talking about. Just like that, like they hold hands all the time. Like they’re _dating_ , Kurt thinks, still wearing an idiotic grin when they reach their classroom and he has to let go again.

 _Michael Jackson_ , the next note says, and Kurt actually doesn’t hate that idea.

He waits until after class to answer, heart pounding hard against his rib cage when Puck reaches for his hand as soon as they reach the hallway.

“It depends what era you’re considering. ‘Thriller’-era Michael Jackson is a far cry from his later catalog, though I don’t hate ‘Man In the Mirror’, but I’m not convinced it’s the best way to showcase your voice. Then there’s the Jackson 5 to consider.”

“There’s that one cover of ‘Billie Jean’ that’s not bad. It’s got kind of a grunge rock vibe.”

That’s not really what the Warblers do either, but Kurt can’t deny that the cover Puck’s talking about would suit him. He wonders if Puck ever thought about suggesting any of this to Schue; he knows full well that Schue wouldn’t have listened even if he tried, but it makes him wonder how much Puck thought about all this before he came to Dalton. If he ever wrote music before he started therapy, and if he’d ever let Kurt hear any of his other songs.

Puck lets go of his hand to take his seat at the back of their English class, and Kurt thinks the matter of his audition song is settled until a tiny, folded up piece of paper hits him in the shoulder halfway through a discussion of The Grapes of Wrath. Kurt frowns and unfolds it carefully, then he rolls his eyes and glances toward the front of the room before he picks up his pen.

_As much as I admire your loyalty to Mr. Schuester, the truth is that there’s been some very good music written in the past fifteen years. You don’t have to sing Gaga or anything, but I don’t think Van Halen will go over all that well with the Warblers._

He passes the note across the aisle and tries to pretend he’s not watching while Puck reads it. But he’s not actually fooling anyone, so he sees the way Puck’s mouth curves as he reads, and when Puck snorts a laugh and picks up his pen Kurt feels the butterflies stir again.

_What do you think it would take to convince Hudson to sing “Hot For Teacher” at Glee practice? I’d pay good money to see Schue’s face if he busted out that one._

Kurt claps his hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh, choking and then coughing and at least he has a good excuse for the way his face is burning. He doesn’t dare look over at Puck, but Kurt can _feel_ him watching, pictures his grin and wishes they were anywhere except trapped in a classroom with no chance to be alone for hours. And he hasn’t really thought about what happens once they’re alone; he hasn’t had the chance, because they’ve only been...well, sort of a couple since lunch, and they haven’t even kissed yet.

Puck hasn’t pulled him into any dark corners between classes, hasn’t pushed him up against any walls in full view of their classmates like he used to do with Santana. Puck doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to do more than take his hand and write terrible things about his stepbrother to make him laugh during class, and when they reach the end of the day without so much as a peck on the cheek, Kurt starts to wonder.

He’s too preoccupied with wondering _why_ Puck hasn’t made any kind of move to remember what day it is until Puck sits down across from him at dinner. Wednesday, which means Puck’s about to swallow an entire glass of milk in one long gulp, then shove a roll in his mouth and ditch Kurt for his therapy appointment. Which means he’ll probably be late for auditions, and if he doesn’t show up on time there’s a chance they won’t let him audition at all.

Except Puck’s not bolting his dinner the way he usually does, and Kurt frowns across the table at him until Puck looks up. “What?”

“Why aren’t you running out of here like you’ve got an appointment to keep? Which you do, by the way. Don’t you?”

Puck just grins and shakes his head like Kurt’s cute but kind of clueless, and Kurt bristles and crosses his arms over his chest. “Relax, babe. I told my shrink on Monday that I might have a thing after dinner today, and she was totally cool with it. I’m seeing her tomorrow instead.”

“Oh.” Kurt frowns at him for another minute, then he tilts his head and flushes and drops his voice a little. “Did you just call me ‘babe’?”

For a second Puck frowns like he’s trying to remember, then he grins and picks up his milk. “Yeah, I guess I did. That gonna be a problem?”

“No,” Kurt answers, because he’s never really seen the point of pet names, but that warm, curling feeling starts up in his stomach as soon as Puck says it, so maybe he doesn’t mind so much when it’s coming from Puck.

This is definitely the weirdest relationship he’s ever been in, which isn’t saying much, he’s aware, considering his track record so far consists of a stolen kiss, three months of polite courtship with Blaine, and a few hours of hand-holding and innuendo with Puck. They’ve held hands and Puck’s sort of implied that he likes Kurt enough to react violently to the thought of Kurt calling it off, and now Puck’s calling him ‘babe’ like it’s completely normal, but they still haven’t even kissed.

Not that he really wants their first kiss to happen in the dining hall in full view of the entire rest of the school, but he’s dating _Puck_ , and it seems as though if he were a girl, Puck would have kissed him by now.

~

“How about Kanye?” Puck says, grinning when Kurt rolls his eyes. “Come on, I heard about Schue’s white boy rap cover. It could be a tribute or whatever.”

“I really don’t think a tribute to Mr. Schuester or New Directions is necessary,” Kurt says, “but if it means that much to you, you could always just sing ‘Ohio’.”

If he was worried that Puck was actually considering singing “Gold Digger”, he’d put up more of a fight, but they’re on their way to the audition, so Kurt knows by now that Puck’s had his song picked out for awhile, and he’s spent the entire day teasing Kurt with inappropriate suggestions just to make him laugh.

“Somebody wrote a song about Ohio?” Puck says, in a tone that implies that he’s wondering why, exactly, and Kurt doesn’t have time to explain the entire plot of “Wonderful Town” to Puck right now, even if he thought Puck would care about an admittedly obscure musical.

They’re almost to the choir room, and when they get close enough to hear the chatter of several different conversations floating out into the hall Kurt catches Puck’s hand and stops walking. Puck looks back at him, then he looks down at their hands and raises an eyebrow at Kurt.

“I’m not really thinking about doing Kanye, Kurt. You don’t have to have a panic attack or anything.”

“I know that,” Kurt says, and he feels his cheeks start to burn but he ignores it and takes a step toward Puck. “I told you, whatever you sing, you’ll still be the best one in there.”

Puck grins at him and sways a little closer, just kind of leaning in and looking at Kurt, one eyebrow still cocked as though he’s issuing some kind of challenge. Kurt wants to scream, because if Puck’s going to kiss him, this is pretty much the perfect time. He’s all but writing an invitation here, and Puck’s proven over the past three days that he can certainly take a hint. Besides, Kurt’s never been any good at subtlety, so it should be obvious what he’s offering.

As soon as he thinks the word he feels the color drain from his face, and the butterflies start up again at hurricane force. And he should have realized what Puck’s waiting for, should have known two days ago when he found himself apologizing for comparing Puck to Karofsky that he was always going to have to make the first move.

Maybe the second and the third too, and that thought makes his stomach flip right over, but there’s not going to be a second or third move unless he makes the first one, so he takes a deep breath that does nothing at all to steel his nerves, then he moves into Puck’s personal space and rests a hand on the front of his blazer.

“For luck,” he whispers just before he leans up and presses his lips to Puck’s.

Their first kiss is soft, just a brief press of lips and the gentle pressure of Kurt’s hand on Puck’s chest, just below his heart. He hears a soft ‘oh’ and realizes it’s coming from him, then he pulls back to take in the sight of dark eyes and slightly parted lips, turning up at the corners like Puck wasn’t really expecting that, but he’s happy all the same that Kurt’s on board with moving things forward already.

“I don’t think I’m gonna need any luck,” Puck says, voice kind of rough and when his hand slides into Kurt’s hair to tilt his head back, Kurt’s whole body shudders.

Puck grins at him up close and fuses their mouths together, letting go of Kurt’s hand to grip his waist and tug him even closer. Kurt’s fingers curl around the front of Puck’s jacket and hold on tight while he kisses Puck back, parting his lips to let Puck in and _this_...this is how he imagined Puck would kiss.

Puck kisses with intent, as though he’s proving a point and he has no intention of stopping until he’s sure his case has been made. He’s breathing hard through his nose, like he’s having trouble keeping his lungs filled but he doesn’t want to stop kissing Kurt even long enough to breathe, and just the thought of Puck wanting him that much -- wanting him and holding back until he’s sure Kurt’s in this with him -- makes Kurt blush all the way to the roots of his hair.

He feels his toes curl -- and God, he didn’t even know that actually happened in real life -- and he wants to drag Puck out of the hall, into the nearest empty room and he doesn’t care where it is or how likely someone is to walk in and see them. All he knows is that he wants more...everything, whatever Puck will give him.

Way too soon Puck’s pulling back, breathing heavy and resting his forehead against Kurt’s for a second. His eyes are closed and he’s still got a hand buried in Kurt’s hair, and all Kurt can think is _I love you._

Then a throat clears down the hall and Puck’s eyes open, but he doesn’t let go of Kurt as he looks up to see who it is.

“Guys, get a room or get in here. Auditions are about to start,” one of the other Warblers says, and Kurt blushes and lets go of Puck’s blazer as a few members of the choir walk by. A couple of them are looking anywhere but at him and Puck, but at least one of them is openly snickering at them. He realizes too late that Blaine’s one of the ones looking away, and he swallows the rush of guilt as Puck lets go of him and glances over his shoulder to watch the other boys pass.

Once they’re gone he turns back to Kurt to slide a hand under his chin, tilting his face up and pressing another firm kiss to his lips before he lets go again.

“Guess I better get in there before your ex blacklists me,” Puck says, and Kurt’s sure he’s dreaming now, because there’s no way Noah Puckerman and Blaine are...well, sort of fighting over him.

“He wouldn’t,” Kurt says, but he’s not really sure anymore. “You said he invited you to try out before I did.”

“Yeah, but he was probably hoping I sucked.”

Kurt rolls his eyes at Puck’s grin and lets himself be pulled into the choir room, then he lets go of Puck’s hand and takes a seat with the rest of the choir. He watches Puck cross the room and write his name on the list, right at the bottom, before he takes a seat with the other guys who made it through the first cut.

They were pretty ruthless with the first cuts, so there aren’t nearly as many performances to listen to the second time around. This time Blaine doesn’t call Puck up right away, but he doesn’t make him wait until last, either. And it’s smart, Kurt knows, because if Puck does well again it will be even harder to argue against him if his is the last performance the rest of them hear.

So he calls Puck right in the middle of the group, and when Puck stands up he doesn’t make a speech about some other song he’s written. Instead he just starts singing, that smirk of his firmly in place and his hips swaying a little like he’s hearing the music in his head while he sings.

It takes Kurt a minute to recognize the song, because Puck’s singing it with kind of a weird, almost country beat, and anyway he never would have guessed Puck for a Kylie Minogue fan. But he sounds good, and his version of the song works in a way Kurt never would have expected, and by the time he hits the second chorus of “All the Lovers”, at least half the room is tapping their feet and a few of the guys are even singing along.

When he finishes Puck grins right at Kurt and takes his seat, and Kurt’s heart pounds in his chest like it’s still keeping time with Puck’s song.

“You’ve gotta admit, man, that’s totally what we do,” one of the guys says when Blaine stands up, and Kurt winces when the rest of the room laughs. But it’s true, and even Blaine smiles and nods in Puck’s direction.

“Let’s save the commentary for after the auditions, guys,” he says, but he doesn’t look that upset, and Kurt feels something in his chest uncoil. “We all had to sweat it out, no reason they shouldn’t too.”

The rest of the guys laugh again, then Blaine calls the next boy up to sing, and Kurt turns his attention back to Puck. Puck who’s staring right back at him, leaning forward in his chair with his elbows braced on his knees and that damn tie hanging around his neck, and all Kurt wants to do is cross the room and climb right into his lap.

But there’s the rest of the auditions, then they’ll have to argue about who’s in and probably have another debate about whether or not to save any spaces for any particularly talented freshmen who might turn up in the fall, and by then it’ll be close to curfew and Kurt still hasn’t done any of his homework.

Which means there’s no chance of picking up where they left off in the hall, even if they didn’t both have roommates, and the next time Kurt sees Puck will be tomorrow in a crowded dining room. He sighs and shifts in his chair and tries to pinpoint when, exactly, he went from being annoyed at the very thought of Noah Puckerman to plotting just exactly how soon he can get Puck alone.

~

As it turns out, there are rules about kissing in the halls. Which seems pretty arbitrary, considering it’s an all-boys’ school, and Kurt’s not entirely unconvinced that the guidance counselor hasn’t made them up while he waits for Kurt and Puck to turn up in his office.

They’re sent there by Kurt’s French teacher, the traitor, who Kurt’s ninety-five percent sure is a lesbian, and shouldn’t the gay community stick together? But he doesn’t point it out, because there’s that other five percent to consider, and if he accuses Madame Moreau of being gay and he’s wrong, there’s a chance it will reflect badly on his grade for the year.

Kurt’s never heard of the alleged rules until they get sent to the guidance counselor, but Blaine never kissed him the way Puck was kissing him right before they split up for their language classes, either, like he was trying to see just how many of Kurt’s brain cells he could blow in the space of two minutes.

He’s never considered that maybe there’s a reason _why_ Blaine never tried to kiss him like that until he hears about the rules, mostly because Kurt never really wanted Blaine to kiss him the way he wants Puck to kiss him.

“This is discrimination,” Kurt says when the guidance counselor finishes lecturing them on propriety and ‘conducting themselves like gentlemen’. “If one of us was a girl no one would have blinked.”

“The rules apply to everyone, even visitors,” the guidance counselor says, and Kurt narrows his eyes and takes back every favorable comparison he ever made between the man and Ms. Pillsbury.

Puck doesn’t say a word through the entire lecture, just sits there and stares down at his hands and for all Kurt knows he’s practicing some kind of meditation technique his therapist taught him. It’s...sort of impressive, not that Kurt has any intention of telling him so, because it’s great that Puck’s getting a handle on his adolescent rage and all, but he could use a little back-up here.

Class is almost over by the time they’re dismissed, and the guidance counselor sends them to lunch a little early with a disturbingly cheerful wave and a promise that the school respects their right to date anyone they like, as long as they respect the rules.

“Thank you so much for the input back there, by the way,” Kurt says when they’re finally clear of the administrative offices, but he can tell Puck’s not listening, because he just blinks and says, “Do you think that counted as an official warning?”

“Warning about what? Keeping our adolescent hormones in check?” Kurt asks, and he’s still too busy being outraged to blush at the mention of his hormones.

“No, seriously, this place has a three strikes policy and they’re pretty hardcore about it. If you get tossed out of here you just go back to Lima, but if I get thrown out it’s back to Juvie.”

Kurt’s heart clenches at the look on Puck’s face, and he reaches out and catches Puck’s hand, gripping just this side of too hard and he’s not even sure what he’s trying to say, but he hopes Puck understands anyway. It’s easy for him to forget that Puck’s on his last chance, that if it wasn’t for Schue buying him another chance he’d already be back in Juvie. Unfairly, yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that technically he _should_ be there already, and Kurt’s certainly not going to be the one to get him sent back.

“They can hardly count it as official if we didn’t know we were breaking one of their stupid rules.”

“I knew,” Puck says, glancing over at Kurt, and now he just looks surprised. “It’s in the handbook. We’re all supposed to read that thing. It’s one of the first things my therapist went over, something about knowing the boundaries so I could learn to operate within them or whatever.”

Kurt’s sure he _got_ a handbook at some point, but he has no idea what he did with it. He knows he didn’t read it, at least not that he can recall. But when he started he already had Blaine to show him the ropes, and Kurt’s ashamed to realize that instead of learning anything on his own he just followed Blaine around like some kind of puppy until Puck came along to distract him.

“So what other rules should I know about?”

“No tongue in the hallway,” Puck says, and Kurt nods without comment because that one he’s already got down. “No hands below the waist in public, uniforms stay on in the building. No hickeys period. It’s a little more chill if we’re outside; we won’t get busted for making out or ditching the blazers or anything, but we’re still supposed to keep our hands above the clothes. Technically there’s a campus-wide no sex rule.”

Kurt’s cheeks are burning just from picturing the things he’s not supposed to do with Puck, but when he gets to that last part Kurt goes from turned on straight back to indignant.

“Someone might have told me I’d joined a convent.”

“Tell me about it,” Puck says, but he’s smiling like he doesn’t really mind that much, and Kurt’s struck all over again at how strange it is to be the one in this relationship pushing for more. “I mean, I knew I should put the brakes on when you kissed me before, but it’s not like I was thinking all that clear at the time. I might be working on controlling my temper or whatever, but I’ve still got needs, you know?”

His voice drops almost a full octave when he says it, and Kurt swallows hard and lets his gaze wander down the center of Puck’s chest. But they’re still in the hallway, and any minute now class is going to let out and if they get caught making out again after they just got in trouble for the very same thing, it probably will be official.

“I did not kiss you first.”

“Yeah, you did,” Puck says, grinning like it’s a mark of personal pride somehow, and it’s possible, Kurt concedes privately, but it’s not like he’d remember who kissed who first, what with the whole brain cell blowing thing.

Puck’s hands land on Kurt -- just above the waist, in keeping with the rules, Kurt notes distantly -- and he leans in, brushing their lips together and that’s so not fair, because Kurt still wants to say to hell with the rules, but he doesn’t want Puck getting sent back to prison just for making out.

“Noah,” he says, murmuring Puck’s name against his mouth and the noise Puck makes when he says it sends a jolt of _want_ straight to the pit of Kurt’s stomach.

Technically they’re not breaking any rules, because there’s no tongue and everyone’s hands are where they’re supposed to be, but Kurt’s pulse is pounding against his eardrums and he can feel Puck’s heart beating fast and he knows how quickly this could turn into something they can’t stop.

“The lacrosse team has a meet way the hell out near Akron on Saturday,” Puck says, breathing heavy even though they aren’t really doing anything, and it’s hot in a way Kurt doesn’t expect. “They’ll be gone all day.”

Kurt wonders for a second if maybe Puck’s blown a few brain cells of his own, because he’s not sure what the lacrosse team’s schedule has to do with anything, but when he pulls back to ask what Puck’s talking about, his stomach clenches hard at the look on Puck’s face.

“My roommate plays lacrosse.”

 _Oh,_ Kurt thinks, feels the pull of desire in his groin and runs his thumb along Puck’s bottom lip. Then he leans up and kisses him again, careful to keep his hands above the waist and his tongue in his own mouth.

“I’ve always been a staunch supporter of school athletics,” he says, and when Puck laughs Kurt feels it rumble against his chest and starts mentally calculating the hours between now and Saturday.

~

The list of new Warblers goes up after dinner, but Puck already knows he’s on it, so it doesn’t matter that he’s with his therapist when it’s posted. Kurt waits for him after dinner, taking advantage of the longer days and the warmer spring evenings to sit outside on the stone steps and read the assigned chapter in their European History book while he waits for Puck to cross the quad and sit down beside him.

He’s trying to focus on the chapter, because he can’t afford to fall behind in any of his classes, no matter how complicated his social life has become lately, but his mind keeps wandering to the feel of Puck’s hand on his waist and the look in his eyes when he said _my roommate plays lacrosse_.

And Kurt’s not a child, so he knows what happens on Saturday. He _wants_ it to happen in a way he’s never wanted anything before, and he doesn’t even find it strange anymore that the person he wants it to happen with is Noah Puckerman.

But that’s just the thing, because Noah’s changed a lot in the last few months, but he’s still Puck, still has all Puck’s vast experience to compare Kurt to, and Kurt…doesn’t. All Kurt has is a good imagination and a reliable internet connection, and there’s only so much that can be learned by asking Google.

He and Blaine never made it past kissing, which is mostly Kurt’s fault, and even though there’s a part of him that wishes he had a little experience, at least so he won’t completely humiliate himself, the rest of him is sort of glad he’s going to be with Puck the first time.

Puck makes him feel safe, and that’s something he never thought he’d be able to say, but there it is, all the same. Puck makes him _feel_ in a way he’s never felt with anyone, not through pointless schoolboy crushes on Finn and Sam, and not during his affectionate but mostly platonic relationship with Blaine.

He looks up and spots Puck walking toward him, heart skipping a beat and that’s another feeling he’s starting to get used to. When Puck reaches him he smiles and sits down on the steps next to Kurt, leans in and curves his hand around the back of Kurt’s neck to draw him in for a kiss.

And they’re outside, so Puck can kiss him however he wants, but he opts for slow and almost chaste, lips barely parted and eyes closed and just…lingering, like he’s trying to make this moment last as long as he can. Kurt’s hand lands on his knee, just because he can, and he smiles against Puck’s mouth and lets his fingers trail up Puck’s inseam.

“Hi,” Kurt says when Puck pulls back to look at him, and he’s aware that his smile’s probably sort of dreamy and ridiculous, but when Puck just smiles back at him he decides it doesn’t matter.

“Hi,” Puck says, then he reaches down to catch the hand that’s still resting on his thigh and pulls it back into neutral territory. “So did I make the cut?”

“You know you did,” Kurt says, rolling his eyes but he’s still smiling, so it sort of ruins the effect. “The Kylie song was pretty inspired. Where’d you come up with that one, anyway?”

“Who’s Kylie?” Puck asks, and his frown probably matches Kurt’s.

“Kylie Minogue. She’s a singer? Club music, mostly, which admittedly doesn’t strike me as your style, so I thought maybe you’d gotten some help on your song choice from Santana or someone.”

“I haven’t talked to anybody from home except Finn and my family since I left,” Puck says. He shrugs when Kurt frowns again, thumb moving across Kurt’s knuckles and it’s distracting in a really nice way. “Figured it was easier to keep Hudson’s secret if I didn’t have to answer a lot of dumb questions, you know?”

It makes sense when he puts it that way, and it’s not like Kurt’s going to complain about Puck leaving Santana and Quinn in his past, but it still seems a little sad that he could just walk away from his entire life like that. Then again, Kurt walked away from his life too, and somehow they still ended up right next to each other.

“So where’d you hear about that song?”

“It’s the Scissor Sisters. They did this totally righteous version of it on some radio show in England or something. Somebody posted a video on Youtube.”

And he should have known, really, because there’s no way Puck’s heard of Kylie. But somehow he still picked the perfect song to get him into show choir, and next year they’ll not only get to spend rehearsals together, but they’ll get to travel to competitions and maybe share a hotel room, at least when they have to stay overnight at Regionals.

Kurt’s stomach trembles at the thought of Puck and a big hotel bed all to himself for an entire night, and he’s grateful the sun’s finally starting to go down so Puck won’t see him blushing for the millionth time this week.

How was therapy?” Kurt asks, just to get his mind off Puck and hotel beds.

“Okay. My shrink says you’re good for me.”

“Oh?” Kurt says, and he knows he sounds surprised, but it’s not so much because Puck’s doctor approves as it is because Puck talks about him.

He knows Puck takes his sessions seriously, and Kurt’s glad, because he seems to be getting plenty out of them, whether he needed them from the start or not. So it’s kind of nice to know that Puck considers him important enough to mention to his doctor, and the fact that she knows enough about them to have an opinion one way or the other means he’s probably been talking about Kurt for awhile.

“Yeah,” Puck says, grinning at Kurt and maybe the sky isn’t quite dark enough to cover his blush after all. “She says I focus better when I’m not distracted thinking about you with some other guy. It _was_ kind of distracting, so I guess she’s got a point.”

It’s still completely weird to be on this side of the equation; back at McKinley Puck had his pick of girls, and there’s no way he ever would have given Kurt a second thought. But here they make sense, so much so that even Puck’s therapist thinks they’re good together. Kurt smiles and squeezes Puck’s hand, then he stands up and pulls Puck to his feet.

“Come on, it’s getting dark out here. Let’s go up to the study lounge and I’ll help you with Geometry.”

Puck stands up, but he holds tight to Kurt’s hand when he tries to walk away, then he slides an arm around Kurt’s waist and pulls him close.

“In a minute,” Puck whispers, the words warm against Kurt’s lips as Puck leans in for another kiss. This one’s harder than the first, wet and hot and open, and when Puck hooks his arms around Kurt and pulls him flush against Puck’s body he moans into Puck’s mouth and fists his hands in the front of Puck’s blazer.

Puck’s hand leaves his waist to slide lower, across his ass and spreading his fingers wide and wow, Puck has really big hands. Kurt gasps into his mouth and lets Puck pull him forward, his erection pressed against Puck’s and when Kurt grinds against him Puck groans and pulls back.

“Jesus, Kurt,” Puck says, but his breath hitches and his hand’s pushing through Kurt’s hair, just sort of...petting him while they breathe the same air and try to pull it together.

“Geometry,” Kurt says, mainly to try to re-focus his brain. Or try to focus it at all, which he’s pretty sure is impossible at this point.

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to be learning a whole lot tonight,” Puck says, letting out a shaky laugh, and boy, does Kurt ever know the feeling.

~

They don’t talk about what happens when Puck’s roommate leaves town with the entire lacrosse team in tow, inadvertently gifting Kurt with the opportunity to get Puck alone that he’s been both longing for and terrified of since this whole thing started. They don’t talk about it on Thursday night when they’re sitting side by side in the study lounge, shoulders pressed together and Kurt’s fingers skimming the back of Puck’s hand while he tries to explain Geometric concepts that don’t currently make any sense to either of them.

They don’t discuss it on Friday either, but Puck’s right there next to him all day, looking as hopelessly rumpled and confident as usual, but sort of _vibrating_ next to Kurt like he’s anticipating something. Kurt tells himself it’s just the adrenaline from the baseball tryouts he knows Puck’s been looking forward to all week; he hasn’t gotten a chance to participate in that kind of organized violence in awhile, so naturally he’d look forward to it.

Except that Puck keeps touching him, whether it’s a hand around his in the hallway, or a hand on his back to steer him through the dining room, or Puck’s thumb tracing the line of his jaw when he leans over the fence at the baseball field, kissing Kurt softly and murmuring, “for luck.” Kurt blushes and tries not to smile when Puck laughs at him, then he sits in the stands and voluntarily watches a live sporting event he’s neither cheering for nor participating in, and wonders what his father would say if he could see Kurt right now.

He doesn’t know what his father thinks of Puck. He’s Finn’s best friend, though, which should count for something. He’s not sure how _Finn_ will feel, but if what he says is true and Puck does talk about Kurt, then maybe he already knows.

Kurt watches Puck swing at a perfect pitch, then he watches Puck lazily jog around the bases as the ball keeps soaring way out past the field, into the tall grass that Kurt assumes means he knocked it out of the park. Not that he ever had any doubt that Puck would make the team; he played for McKinley, after all, and Kurt always assumed it was just because he had to do _something_ with all that testosterone after football season was over, but it turns out he’s pretty good.

It doesn’t hurt that he looks really good in the uniform.

After tryouts Kurt hangs around while the coach talks to them, then he waits while Puck heads to the locker rooms to change with the rest of the guys. He sits in the bleachers and tries not to picture Puck changing in a locker room full of other athletic young men and flips his phone open and closed while he debates whether or not to send the text he’s been considering for a few days now.

As soon as he does there’s no taking it back. No pretending it never happened and going back to life before ‘Kurt and Noah’. That’s how most of the guys are already referring to them, in the same breath as though they just...go together. So if it doesn’t work out there will be enough public humiliation to suffer at Dalton, and he’s been telling himself all week that he doesn’t need to set himself up for that in Lima as well.

Right now his father and Carole know, he’s fairly sure, at least if his dad caught any of the hints Kurt dropped the last time they spoke. And he hasn’t asked, but Puck keeps up a regular e-mail conversation with Finn which apparently started as more or less a progress report on _Kurt_ , so he’s guessing Finn knows. Which means Kurt’s entire family knows about his relationship, and it’s possible some of Puck’s family knows, but that’s as far as the news has spread back home.

If he tells Mercedes and swears her to secrecy she might actually keep his secret. He’s not sure; they all _try_ to keep each other’s confidences, but there are some secrets that are just too good not to tell, and when there’s a willing audience of 500 other gossip-prone teenagers around, people are bound to talk.

Then there’s Puck to consider. It’s possible he doesn’t want other people to know, that he wants to keep his life here at Dalton separate from whatever he was back in Lima. It’s not that Kurt thinks he’s some kind of bi-curious experiment on Puck’s part. He considered the possibility, at first, but Puck’s made it fairly clear that this is what he wants and he doesn’t have any qualms about the fact that Kurt happens to also be a guy. He’s fine with all the boys at Dalton knowing, including the ones on the baseball team, apparently, considering he just kissed his boyfriend in front of them.

His _boyfriend_. It’s silly and juvenile and Kurt’s well aware, because he’s had a boyfriend practically every minute since he got to Dalton, but it wasn’t until this week that the thought has made the butterflies in his stomach take flight.

“What’s the matter?”

Kurt blinks at the sound of Puck’s voice and looks up from his phone, taking in Puck’s frown and his guarded expression and shaking his head. “Nothing. I was just wondering...do you mind if I mention to Mercedes that we’re seeing each other?”

Puck doesn’t lose the frown, but the guarded expression clears in favor of that cute, puzzled one he gets when he doesn’t quite grasp a Geometry concept.

“Why would I? I told Hudson you finally stopped holding out on me a couple days ago. Come to think of it, he’s probably told Berry already, because you know he can’t keep a secret from her worth a damn, and she’s got the biggest fucking mouth in Lima, so Aretha probably already knows.”

It’s surprisingly sound logic, Kurt has to admit. He smiles and lets Puck pull him to his feet, then Puck slides an arm around his shoulders and pulls him back toward the school. “Believe me, if Mercedes had heard already, I’d know.”

Puck laughs but doesn’t answer, so Kurt flips his phone back open and starts a new text. Only he’s not sure of the best way to say it; he could just come right out and say, _Noah and I are an item now_ , only she’d probably have to ask who Noah is, and that would require more explanation than he can fit in 160 characters.

_Puck and I are an item now._

That’s perfectly clear, and it might not even surprise her all that much, given the conversation she witnessed the last time he was home. It’s clear, but it doesn’t even come close to saying what’s really happening. He could type, _Somehow I fell in love with Noah Puckerman. I keep expecting to wake up from a truly amazing dream_ , but that doesn’t get the point across that he thinks Puck might kind of love him back, a little.

He’s not bold enough to type _Puck and I are in love_ , not with Puck looking over his shoulder. The cursor’s still blinking at the end of _Puck and I_ , waiting for him to commit to a message and press send and this shouldn’t be so hard.

Before he makes up his mind Puck makes an impatient noise and pulls his arm off Kurt’s shoulders, then he tugs Kurt’s phone out of his hand and stops walking, fingers flying over the tiny keyboard and before Kurt even gets a look at whatever he’s typing, Puck hits send.

“Hey,” Kurt protests, but Puck just rolls his eyes and hands the phone back.

“Whatever, Princess, you’d be standing out here staring at that screen all night if I didn’t do something. I’m gonna go drop my gear in my room and grab my stuff. I’ll meet you in the study lounge in twenty.”

Then he’s gone, before Kurt can even protest that it’s Friday night, and technically they have all weekend to study. Except they’ve got plans for Saturday, and Kurt blushes and flips the phone open to scroll down to his sent messages. He hesitates for a second before he opens the most recent one, wincing at Puck’s appalling affinity for text speak, but he has to admit Puck knows how to get the point across.

_hey retha u dont hav 2 worry bout yr boy i got it covrd. thnk i kinda luv him. peace_

His heart’s still pounding hard when his phone beeps, then the message he’s been staring at disappears and Kurt hits ‘okay’ to read the incoming text.

_Did Puck just txt me from yr phone and say he loves you????_

He’s only got twenty minutes before he’s supposed to meet Puck, and that’s not nearly enough time to have this conversation, but at least the fact that he’s having it means he didn’t hallucinate Puck’s text after all. Kurt smiles and hits reply, then he starts typing.

_Yes, and the craziest part is, I love him too._

~

Saturdays at Dalton Prep aren’t that much different than any other day. They don’t have to attend classes, of course, but they have so much homework over the weekends that any alleged free time they have is eaten up by whatever projects they haven’t gotten done during the week. Then there are club meetings and group projects, regular meal times to work around and by the time they get to Sunday evening, no one feels all that much like they’ve had a weekend at all.

The dress code is a little more relaxed on the weekend, but if they’re not playing a sport or outside tossing a football around or something, they’re expected to be in their shirtsleeves and uniform pants, at the very least. So they get to ditch the tie and the blazer, if they want, which isn’t much of a break from the monotony of the uniform, in Kurt’s opinion.

Seniors who keep cars on campus can head into town in civilian clothes to spend the day hanging around in the tiny, picturesque village down the road that’s popular with tourists and Dalton moms. They’re expected to conduct themselves ‘in a manner befitting their status as Dalton Men’, which means even if Kurt and Puck were allowed into town, they’re technically not allowed to sit in the back row of the movie theater and ignore the movie while they spend two hours just making out.

Still, it’s a fairly safe rule to break, considering the stories Kurt’s heard about some of the seniors who have girlfriends near enough to meet them in town on the weekend. Something to look forward to when they’re seniors and he’s got the Navigator on campus, at any rate.

He doesn’t realize he’s smiling until he hears Puck say, “What?” across the table. Kurt looks up from his coffee and blushes, which just ups the wattage on Puck’s grin even further, and Kurt knows what Puck _thinks_ he’s smiling about.

“I was thinking about next year,” Kurt says, and it’s perfectly true, even if Puck’s a little bit right about _what_ , exactly, he was thinking about next year. “You know, we can have cars on campus when we’re seniors. I was just thinking if I had the Navigator here, we could go home more often. Or whatever.”

“I can get behind ‘whatever’.”

The way Puck’s looking at him sends a thrill of anticipation straight to Kurt’s dick, but what makes his heart race is the fact that Puck didn’t even blink at the fact that Kurt just assumes they’ll still be together next year. And okay, Puck’s already said he loves Kurt -- sort of, anyway -- so Kurt knows this isn’t like his other relationships. If one can even call them relationships, which Kurt really can’t, not when he’s heard Santana herself announce more than once that having sex with Puck doesn’t mean they’re dating.

So unless he counts Quinn -- and really, they can hardly count _that_ as a relationship -- this is the first time Puck’s ever dated someone. Granted, it’s been less than a week, but Puck said himself that he’s wanted this for a lot longer than just a week, so Kurt’s pretty sure that means he’s planning to stick around.

Still. It’s kind of nice to have independent confirmation, and Kurt’s not too proud to admit it, at least to himself.

“You ready to get out of here?” Puck asks, and when Kurt looks up at him again the butterflies in his stomach stage a revolt the likes of which he’s never felt before. Kurt nods because he doesn’t trust his voice not to betray him, then he stands up and doesn’t even think about picking up his tray before he follows Puck out of the dining room.

Puck reaches for his hand, and when Kurt looks up Puck’s watching him with dark, dark eyes and an expression that Kurt would have described as ‘scary’ once, but now he knows that it just means Puck knows exactly what he wants, and he’s waiting for the signal that tells him it’s his for the taking.

Kurt’s seen Puck’s room before, and even if he hadn’t, it doesn’t look any different from the rest of their rooms. Two single beds pushed against either wall, a long desk at the back split into two sections and lined with textbooks and CDs and copies of _Sports Illustrated_. There’s a window above the desk that looks out over the woods that stretch out beyond the school, and it’s a different view than Kurt has from his own window, which is the most distinguishing thing about it.

Puck’s guitar is leaning against the wall by the head of his bed, and when Kurt follows him inside and closes the door Puck passes by the bed and picks up the guitar. “You still want to hear that song?”

“Yes,” Kurt says, and it’s true, but it’s not why they’re here, and he’s not sure whether to be annoyed at the stalling tactic or grateful for the reprieve. He sits in the chair at Puck’s desk anyway, perching on the edge and watching while Puck clears his throat and sits down on the side of his bed.

Puck strums a few chords, listening to each one before he decides that the guitar’s tuned well enough and starts playing. And he’s right; the song sounds better with a guitar behind it. The lyrics are still nonsensical and absolutely, one hundred percent Puck, and somehow the guitar makes them even more so. Kurt thinks vaguely that it has something to do with the sort of frenetic beat, but it’s hard to think at all when Puck’s staring at him like he’s trying to tell Kurt something.

He’s not vain enough to assume Puck wrote that song for him or anything. But it’s hard not to believe it when Puck’s watching him and singing _you know I dreamed about you for eighteen years before I saw you_ , and when Puck closes his eyes and sings _I missed you for eighteen years_ , Kurt has to swallow hard around the lump in his throat.

And he’s not actually a girl, despite certain closed-minded opinions to the contrary back home, so he’s not going to cry. But he sort of wants to, because he _knows_ how that feels, and it’s been less than a week, so there’s no guarantee he’ll get to keep this feeling. It turns out Puck knows the feeling too, though, and that’s a pretty good start.

When Puck’s done he doesn’t set the guitar down; he doesn’t look up either, just keeps strumming chords and kind of humming under his breath. Like he’s nervous. Like he’s waiting for Kurt’s reaction and it _matters_ or something.

“You were right,” Kurt says, voice shaking a little and he’s sure Puck can hear it too. “It sounds even better with a guitar behind it.”

One side of Puck’s mouth lifts in a smile, and he strums another chord before he looks up at Kurt. “Yeah, the whole a cappella thing is cool or whatever, but I can’t see giving up the guitar for good.”

“How long have you been writing music, anyway?”

“Not long,” Puck answers, then he looks down at the strings again and shifts his fingers into what Kurt can see is a tricky chord. “Me and Hudson used to mess around, back before football kinda took over, but it was mostly shitty heavy metal and a lot of it we probably ripped off from real bands anyway. This is the first one I ever wrote for real. I’m working on something new, but so far all I’ve got is the bridge and a few lyrics.”

“Can I hear it?”

“Nothing to hear yet, babe,” Puck says, then he grins and Kurt feels his temperature creep up a few degrees. Puck sets the guitar back down on the floor and Kurt knows that this is it, that they’ve reached that ‘second move’ he’s going to have to make if he wants to _do_ anything today other than listen to Puck strum chords on his guitar and reminisce about his youthful rock band dreams.

Kurt stands up and crosses the few feet of space to the bed, and when Puck straightens up again Kurt’s standing right in front of him. He looks a little surprised, but he reaches up to grip Kurt’s hips - below the waist, and thank God for that, Kurt thinks -- and slides his tongue along his bottom lip, like maybe he’s waiting for something.

Waiting for _Kurt_ , and just the thought is as terrifying as it is really, really hot. Kurt takes a deep breath and rests his hands on either side of Puck’s face, fingers catching a little on the stubble on his chin as Kurt leans forward and kisses him.

He’s kissed Puck enough times by now to know what it feels like, the way it makes his skin feel tight and electric, like his whole body’s vibrating with the need for more. But this is the first time he’s ever kissed Puck behind closed doors, where they both know that it’s not going to stop at just a kiss. At least it’s not if Kurt has anything to say about it, and anyone who’s ever met him knows he usually has plenty to say.

Kurt laughs at the thought and kisses Puck again, slower this time, because they’ve got...well, not all the time in the world, certainly, and not even enough time for everything Kurt wants from Puck, but they’ve got time, and that’s more of a luxury than Kurt expected.

Puck’s hands leave his hips and slide down, over the swell of his ass to grip the backs of his thighs. Kurt makes a muffled, embarrassing noise against Puck’s mouth and runs his hands over Puck’s scalp, fingers digging into his stupid mohawk and when Puck sort of purrs low in his throat and tightens his grip on Kurt’s legs, Kurt does it again.

They’re still wearing all their clothes, and that’s no good, so Kurt reaches for the buttons on Puck’s shirt, tugging them open one by one and it’s a good thing he’s so well-versed in fashion, because it’s not that easy to unbutton someone else’s shirt with his eyes closed.

“Kurt,” Puck murmurs, right up against his mouth, then he pulls back a little and Kurt opens his eyes to blink down at him.

Kurt makes a vague humming noise and opens another button, but he’s reaching the point where he’s going to have to change positions to get Puck’s shirt open all the way, and he’s not sure he’s ready to give up the fingers tracing the crease of his thighs right along the bottom of his ass.

“Kurt,” Puck says again, louder this time and Kurt blinks and looks at him. Puck’s pupils are blown and Kurt can see clearly exactly how into this he is when he glances down at Puck’s lap, so he’s not sure what the problem is. He’s sure it’s nothing that can’t be surmounted with a little well-placed distraction, though, so he shoves at Puck’s shoulders until he moves back on the bed, then Kurt kneels on the mattress and swings one leg over Puck’s thighs.

“Yes?” Kurt says, and at least he can reach more buttons while he’s more or less straddling Puck’s lap, so he gets back to business. And Puck could help here, but Kurt’s pretty sure this is that third move he’s been expecting to have to make, so he’s mostly okay with it.

“Look, I know I gave you a lot of shit about not putting out for Blaine and all, but I was just being an asshole because I was jealous. I mean, it was either that or beat the shit out of the dude, and I don’t do that anymore. Not unless somebody deserves it, anyway.”

He’s talking a lot, but Kurt’s not sure _why_ , exactly. He already knows all of this, and it’s kind of a weird time to play true confessions anyway. So Kurt unfastens the last button on Puck’s shirt, then he pushes the shirt open and reaches for the button at the top of Puck’s pants.

A hand closes over his and he looks up, watching Puck’s face while he takes a deep breath, then another one. “I’m trying to say you don’t have to do this. If you’re not ready or whatever.”

It’s sweet, Kurt supposes, and it’s clearly a pretty big sacrifice for Puck, because he’s fighting his breath and his voice sounds sort of funny, like he can’t quite remember how to work it. So Kurt shifts until their dicks are lined up, gasping and closing his eyes for a second while he bites down hard on his lip. When he regains control and opens his eyes again Puck’s still watching, but he’s not trying to talk Kurt out of this anymore.

“This is something you’re not going to hear very often in our relationship, so I want you to enjoy it,” Kurt says, then he shifts a little more and Puck groans and grips his thigh hard enough for Kurt to feel it. “You were right, Noah. About Blaine; about everything. I know what I want now. I love you. Now shut up.”

He’s not sure where he finds the courage to say all that, and by the end of his speech he’s blushing so furiously he’s sure he’s going to burst into flames, and wouldn’t Santana love the number of gay jokes she’d get out of _that_ untimely demise. Kurt starts to laugh, but the sound comes out as a choked sort of ‘oh’ when Puck surges up and kisses him hard.

And that’s a little more like it, Kurt thinks as Puck’s hand clamps down hard on his hip to rock Kurt against him, grunting at each brush of Kurt’s erection against his own. It’s good, but they’re still wearing an awful lot of clothes, and even when Puck lets go long enough to ditch his shirt, his chest is still mostly covered by his undershirt.

Kurt lets out a frustrated whine and tugs Puck’s undershirt out of his pants, hands sliding across the taut skin stretched across his stomach and when he feels Puck tremble under his touch he gasps against Puck’s mouth. Because Kurt’s the one who should be kind of nervous here; he’s the one with no basis for comparison, and Puck’s the one with a whole host of notches in his proverbial bedpost.

But he’s been so careful with Kurt, like maybe he’s afraid to break him or something. At first Kurt just assumed Puck was out of his element once he found himself having feelings for another boy, but now he’s starting to think it’s because of Finn. It’s a weird thought to have while Puck’s rocking up against him and fucking Kurt’s mouth with his tongue -- and that is _so_ against the rules -- but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Puck made a promise to Finn to look out for Kurt, and the falling in love part wasn’t in the original plan, but he’s still being careful out of some weird sense of loyalty to Kurt’s stepbrother. He’s trying not to _hurt_ Kurt, and when he’s not just taking what he wants without worrying about who gets hurt along the way, he’s not really sure what to do.

The realization doesn’t make Kurt that much more confident about what he’s doing, and when he finally gets Puck out of his undershirt and he’s faced with a broad expanse of perfect skin, Kurt’s own stomach trembles. But it’s a weird sort of power trip too, because Puck’s rocking against him and pushing his hands up under Kurt’s clothes like he doesn’t have the patience to take them off the right way, and it’s all because of how much he wants _Kurt_.

Later Kurt won’t be able to say how they got out of the rest of their clothes, but that’s Puck’s area of expertise, so Kurt assumes he finally got with the program and helped out a little. All he knows is that one minute he’s tugging open enough buttons at his neck to pull his shirt right over his head, undershirt and all, and the next he’s flat on his back and their pants are gone and Puck’s kissing him like he’s making up for lost time.

Kurt’s hands are moving of their own accord, touching every inch of that perfect skin he can reach, kneading at Puck’s shoulders and sliding down his back to drag his fingernails back up either side of Puck’s spine. Puck’s thrusting against him, hips moving in an infuriatingly slow rhythm and Kurt pants against his mouth and digs his fingers in a little harder, hoping that Puck will get the message and pick up the pace a little.

His mouth leaves Kurt’s and then Puck’s looking down at him, grinning and grinding down until Kurt moans and slides a leg around Puck’s waist.

“Pushy,” Puck says, then he leans in again and presses a kiss to the side of Kurt’s neck. “I like it.”

Kurt thinks _tease_ , but what he says is _Noah_ , dragging the word out until it sounds raw and painful and dirty. Puck bucks a little harder against him and mouths his way along Kurt’s neck, using his tongue and sometimes his teeth to explore every inch of Kurt’s skin. When he hits a particularly sensitive spot he opens his mouth and sucks, and Kurt arches up into him and grips his shoulders hard.

He’s making needy little noises in the back of his throat, and he doesn’t even care that Puck’s going to leave a mark. He’ll take the punishment, whatever it is, for breaking the no hickey rule, and there’s no way they can prove Puck’s the one who gave it to him.

But Puck remembers the rule as soon as Kurt does, and he lets out a growl and pulls his mouth away from the side of Kurt’s neck. His hand slides under the thigh that’s wrapped around his waist, pulling Kurt’s leg up and pulling him open at the same time, settling a little further against him and matching the rhythm of Kurt’s hips.

Puck pushes up onto his hands to look at Kurt, elbows locked to hold him up and his pupils are blown so wide his eyes look black. Kurt arches up into him and digs his fingers into Puck’s arms, grasping for just a little more, just enough to pull them both over the edge. And Puck’s just watching, moving in time with Kurt but not giving him any more than he’s taking. It’s maddening, because Kurt doesn’t know what to ask for and even if he did he wouldn’t be able to say the words.

Puck’s waiting for him to ask; that much he’s sure of, and he doesn’t know anymore if it’s still because Puck’s scared to push too hard, or if he just likes making Kurt show him how much he wants Puck. Like he needs more proof of that. Like it was ever in question, even when Kurt was dating someone else and pretending he didn’t even like Puck. Which, okay, there _was_ a time he wasn’t particularly fond of Puck, but even then he couldn't deny that Puck’s attractive.

He’s _gorgeous_ , from the well-defined muscles to the perfect smile to the way he looks at Kurt, equal parts smoldering and vulnerable, _open_ in a way Kurt’s never seen before. So it turns out love looks pretty good on him, which is no surprise, considering everything looks good on Puck.

Kurt presses up off the bed and kisses him again, tongue pushing past Puck’s teeth as he slides a hand between them and wraps his fingers around Puck’s cock. And yes, he’s heard the stories, most of which _can’t_ be true just based on the laws of physics, but Kurt knows full well that most myths have a basis in fact, so he’s not surprised at all to discover that Noah Puckerman does, in fact, have quite a bit to offer.

He imagines wrapping his lips around Puck, wonders how far he could take Puck in before he chokes and has to resort to his hand, working Puck’s length the way he’s doing now while he uses his tongue and his mouth on the head of Puck’s dick. Not that he’s getting any complaints about his hand so far; Puck’s moaning into his mouth and thrusting into Kurt’s grip, and he’s sucking on Kurt’s tongue in a way that should be kind of gross, but mostly just makes Kurt want more and more and more.

Puck’s arms are still locked on either side of him, so Kurt feels it when they start to shake. He lets go of Puck and pushes on his chest until Puck slides onto the mattress next to him, pulling Kurt close and pressing their mouths together to murmur words Kurt can’t quite catch as Kurt reaches for him again.

Then Puck pulls his mouth away from Kurt’s long enough to lick his own palm, eyes locked on Kurt’s the entire time. Kurt watches the drag of Puck’s tongue along his own skin, imagines Puck’s mouth wrapped around him and tightens his grip. Puck groans and reaches between them to pull Kurt’s hand away, then he lines them up again and wraps his hand around both of them.

Kurt gasps and thrusts into Puck’s grip, earning himself a laugh that rumbles through Puck’s chest and sends heat all the way from the tips of Kurt’s ears down to his toes. He closes his own hand over Puck’s and matches his rhythm, using his thumb to spread drops of wet heat with each upstroke.

Puck’s talking again, forehead pressed against Kurt’s shoulder and mouthing words against his skin. It’s nonsense, mostly, but Kurt thinks he hears his own name a time or two, and it makes his heart pound even harder in his chest. He’s still fisting them both hard, hips moving faster and faster and pressing Kurt back into the mattress until Puck’s practically on top of him again.

Their hands are trapped between them and it’s a weird angle, but when Puck’s free hand slides under him to grip his ass and pull him up Kurt doesn’t really care if his arm’s going to hurt later. Puck’s fingers drag across his ass and Kurt’s not sure if he even means to do it, but Puck's opening him up all the same, and when Kurt imagines taking Puck inside him he gasps against Puck’s mouth and comes.

Puck follows a few seconds later, thrusting hard against him and panting against Kurt’s neck, his hand still gripping them loose and stroking through his orgasm. When he finally stops shaking Puck slides off Kurt and mouths his way back up Kurt’s neck, pressing soft kisses against his lips.

Kurt slides his arms around Puck’s neck and kisses him back, and if he holds on a little tighter than strictly necessary, Puck doesn’t mention it. Instead he reaches above them without looking, fumbling through the pile of clothes at the head of the bed until he finds his undershirt. He pulls away long enough to wipe both their stomachs clean, then wipes his hands on the wrecked shirt and tosses it on the floor.

When he’s finished he tugs down the covers they never bothered with and drags Kurt between the sheets with him, pulling him close and _spooning_ and Kurt can’t help laughing.

“What?”

Puck’s voice is rough and sleepy and Kurt’s heart swells with a rush of affection. He slides his hand along the arm that’s around his waist until their fingers thread together, then he turns his head just far enough to brush his lips across Puck’s shoulder.

“I was just thinking what it would do to your reputation at McKinley if anyone there ever found out you’re a cuddler.”

He doesn’t hear Puck’s laugh so much as feel it, and when warm lips brush the back of his neck Kurt presses back into Puck’s body heat.

“Yeah, well, I go to Dalton now, so it doesn’t matter what anybody at McKinley thinks.”

The arm around Kurt’s waist tightens for a second or two, like maybe he’s trying to prove some kind of point, then he relaxes and Kurt closes his eyes and listens to Puck breathe until he falls asleep.

~

“How are you going to play baseball and sing in the show choir, anyway?” Kurt asks, frowning down at Puck where he’s stretched out on the grass next to Kurt.

They’re spending Sunday out on the quad, textbooks open around them but neither of them has made much headway on any of their homework. Kurt knows he’s going to pay for that tomorrow, but the past two days are the happiest he can ever remember being, and he wants to hold onto that feeling for as long as he can.

Besides, it’s finally warm enough to sit out on the quad all afternoon, and that means they've only got a little over a month left before they’re done for the year. When he transferred to Dalton he didn’t think much about what happened at the end of the year, when he had to go back to Lima for nearly three solid months.

He tried _not_ to think about going back to Lima, because even though he wasn't going back to McKinley, he was going back to familiar faces and the same old patterns and listening to his friends fill him in on gossip he didn't want to know about people he’d just as soon forget existed. He’d thought at the time that none of his friends knew the real reason he left, and that’s still mostly true. But Puck knows, and Finn knows and even Rachel, and Kurt thinks he might even tell Mercedes and Tina when he gets home.

It’s still not something he likes to remember, but it’s a little easier to think about these days, so maybe he’ll be able to talk about it someday too. Not that there’s much to say, and anyway he has better things to talk about lately.

Puck blinks against the sunlight and tilts his head to look up at Kurt, and his smile looks kind of weird from this angle, but Kurt leans over and kisses him anyway. Puck’s hand lands on the back of his neck, fingers warm on Kurt’s skin where he pushes them under the collar of Kurt’s blazer.

His own blazer is lying on the grass beside him, shirtsleeves rolled up and he never even bothered with his tie this morning. Every time Kurt looks at him he thinks the word ‘debauched’, and he grins and presses one last kiss to Puck’s bottom lip before he sits up again.

“I haven’t even made the baseball team yet, babe.”

“You will,” Kurt says with exactly as much confidence as he feels. “I saw you out there, Noah. You were better than anybody else.”

“You’re pretty good for my ego, Hummel.”

“Please, like you’ve ever needed help with your ego,” Kurt says, rolling his eyes as Puck laughs and turns onto his side to push himself up on one elbow.

“I talked to the coach before I tried out,” Puck says, still grinning and Kurt can’t decide if it’s annoying or just annoyingly charming. “He said it should be cool. The athletics department works with the other extracurriculars to make sure nobody overlaps any more than they have to, and Glee doesn’t travel all that much on weekends. So if I have to miss a game or two during the season, it’s not the end of the world.”

Kurt tries to imagine anyone at McKinley being that flexible about working with the Glee club’s schedule. Then he pictures Coach Sylvester’s head actually exploding, and that’s a little easier to visualize.

“Really?”

“That's what I said. I mean, it’s _Glee_ , right? But they take it pretty serious here. Guess all the trophies probably help with that.”

“I guess.”

It’s not the first time since he transferred that Kurt’s had the urge to pinch himself. It’s not even the first time this weekend, but he has a feeling it’s going to keep happening for awhile, maybe even until they graduate and have to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives. And Kurt knows that decision is closer than he’d like it to be, because he’s finally happy for the first time and he wants it to last.

But they’ve still got the summer, and the few times the subject’s come up so far Puck’s made it sound like it’s a given that they’ll be spending as much of it as possible together. And next year they can drive themselves back to school, which means they'll have a readily available means of escaping the antiquated rules on campus once in awhile.

They’ve got a whole year ahead of them to be Kurt and Noah, whatever that means, and after that...well, he’s not going to worry about it until he has to.


End file.
